OnScreen Review: "Da 5 Bloods"
Ken Jones, Chief Film Critic
If I’m being completely honest, Spike Lee is not on my list of favorite living directors. I still have some big blind spots with his filmography. However, the more I’ve seen of his work, the more I am convinced that he is without question one of the most important and influential living directors. His films are often bold, creative, fresh, and, maybe most importantly, provocative. Admittedly, I struggle with provocateur directors, whether they be Spike Lee or Michael Haneke. But I’ve come to appreciate the way Spike Lee challenges and pushes with his films more and more.
Da 5 Bloods is Lee’s first directorial feature since he his Oscar winning BlacKkKlansman. It’s still a “Spike Lee Joint” through and through, but it’s also an expansion of his voice as a director. The film is set in Vietnam, as four vets return to search for both the remains of a fallen brother in arms (played by Chadwick Boseman in flashback) and the gold treasure they buried with him. Spike is a director who is almost synonymous with New York City, and though he has done work outside of NYC, he has rarely filmed outside of the US (Mircale at St. Anna), so Vietnam is a notable departure from his comfort zones. Nothing is lost in translation, as Spike’s ear for dialogue and eye for cinematic visuals are not confined to the five boroughs.
The film jumps back and forth between the present and the Vietnam War. The four men, Paul, Otis, Eddie, and Melvin (Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr., respectively) portray themselves in the present and the past, sans any de-aging special effects. I don’t bring that up to contrast it with what Scorsese did with The Irishman, rather to point out that the effect in the film is that of these older men reliving their shared memory of the pas, which is enhanced by the aspect ratio on screen also shifting from widescreen in the present to a boxier, grainier picture in the past. The first time this happens is with an absolutely stunning shot of a chopper, silhouetted by the sun, entering a valley and touching down for a recovery mission.
Spike puts Lindo, Peters, Lewis, and Whitlock Jr. through their paces too, as the film involves them hiking into the jungle and hiking out to find their fallen comrade. They’re also joined by Paul’s son, David (Jonathan Majors, a promising up and coming actor), with whom Paul has a strained relationship. The jungle, like in most Vietnam War movies, is almost a character of its own. Sweat drips, glistens, and pours off everyone on screen. If there is an opposite of reliving glory days, this is it for this group of guys. Also, it’s great to have Delroy Lindo back in my life. It feels like I haven’t seen him in 20 years. His performance is revelatory and should garner award consideration.
References abound to other war movies (Apocalypse Now is overtly referenced with “Ride of the Valkyrie” while others are more subtle), but this journey in a heart of darkness is heightened and tinged with its own unique burdens, trials, and tribulations. While filming outside of the US is rare for Spike, the subject matter of the film, of the black experience, is not at all rare. Not only does this group of veterans struggle with the same struggles of any veteran that returns to Vietnam and has encounter their past so viscerally, but there is a added layer of being a black men who fought for a country where they still struggle for equality. They had to listen to Hanoi Hannah tell them on the radio that black people make up 12% of the population, yet they comprised over 30% of the armed forces fighting in Vietnam. They must deal with Hanoi Hannah telling them that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. Coupled with being outraged over that, they must grapple with the fact that they’re getting that news in the form of propaganda over the airwaves from the enemy they’re fighting.
It’s a fresh perspective on Vietnam because there are so few movies about black soldiers. In fact, one of the things I finally began to appreciate about Spike Lee as a filmmaker with this film is that he makes a point to teach history in his films. There are little diversions from the main story, almost like little vignettes of short stories, where Spike will share a piece of black history to relate to the story; think of the Earl Monroe story in He Got Game or the reverse version at the end of BlacKkKlansman that ties that past to our present. Here, Spike takes time in a story about four black Vietnam veterans to talk about Crispus Attucks and the Boston Massacre. The film points out that black people have been dying for this country from the very beginning, so the story of this small band of men is emblematic of the larger story of black men in America.
The relationships between black men is at the heart of this film, explored both through their friendship and shared experience but also through the complicated relationship between Delroy Lindo’s Paul and Jonathan Majors’ David. On top of that, you add the PTSD that all of them deal with to varying degrees, and the heightened emotions of searching for a lost friend. Then add to that having to work with suspicious characters to plan to smuggle the gold out of the country if they recover it. And finally, ad the warning one of them receives from an old flame that gold does strange things to people. Blend this all together and you’ve got a combustible situation brewing with more than just their past waiting for them in the jungle. Most of these elements blend together quite well, though a few spots in the film become predictable and clunky, like the introduction of an organization that searches for landmines in the region.
Overall, this is an impressive film from an established director. Spike Lee hits a lot of familiar notes, but also puts a fresh spin on them while expanding his palette. It’s also a deeply emotional film. What it has to say about the place of black men in America is also sadly all too relevant to the news of today. Black soldiers in Vietnam fought against the North Vietnamese, but they also had to fight injustices that are still being fought against today, over 50 years later. And they’ve been dying for this country for a long time. Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods adds needed scope to Vietnam War movies and gives dimension to the stories of black veterans.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
(Da 5 Bloods is streaming on Netflix)