Film Review: Da 5 Bloods

Film

Jun 17

Spike Lee Returns with the Frantic and Vital Da 5 Bloods

Profoundly letting go of all subtleties, Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods acts as an urgent and vital exploration of the legacy of war and its impact on Black soldiers. Utilizing its ensemble cast and an arsenal of directorial bravura, Lee creates a powerful parallel to our dystopian times and raises an incisive commentary on racism through the lens of the Vietnam War. Minor spoilers ahead…

Timely and relevant. These are the words describing Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods that I see over and over again. Under the long shadow of police brutality and the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks, the film seems remarkably prescient from a non-Black perspective (including my own); but for Black America, Lee’s latest epic isn’t just about timing or relevancy, it’s a harrowing reflection of a persistent reality: a reality under the boot-heel of systemic racism that stretches back to Eric Garner, back to Birmingham, back to Black Wall Street, back to the Civil War, back to the slave ships. With Da 5 Bloods, Lee focuses on a sliver of injustice that has largely slipped away from the public consciousness - the complex and difficult relationship between Black soldiers and war; namely, being conscripted as weaponized fodder for armed conflicts in which they have no stake, killed for a country they can barely call home.

Spike Lee is anything but subtle. Opening on a powerful historical montage of parallel unrest - the Vietnam War, the protests against it, and the concurrent Black Liberation Movement - Da 5 Bloods wears its central message on its sleeve. In the background, the words of Muhammad Ali strike upon a sobering truth: “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud, for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me n****r, they never lynched me. They didn’t put no dogs on me. They didn’t rob me of my nationality.” A scathing indictment of the American imperialist machine and the Black lives that suffer for it, Ali’s words set the tone for the rest of the film.

“…for Black America, Lee’s latest epic isn’t just about timing nor relevancy, it is a harrowing reflection of a persistent reality.”

Centered around a reunion amongst brothers-in-arms, Da 5 Bloods sees Vietnam War veterans Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) gather in Ho Chi Minh City for one last mission to find the body of Norman “Stormin’ Norman” Holloway (Chadwick Boseman), their squad leader who fell in battle decades ago. While their present-day recovery mission has noble intentions, there is a particularly shiny ulterior motive: a massive cache of CIA gold meant for Vietnamese insurgents that was buried alongside their late commanding officer. Stormin’ Norman may be long dead, but the spirit of the Bloods’ fallen brother looms large throughout the story - the idea to “liberate” the gold comes to him in a rousing flashback with some words of real-life prophecy: “War is about money. Money is about war. Every time I walk out my front door, I see cops patrolling my neighborhood like it’s some kind of police state. I can feel just how much I ain’t worth.” In the present day, Paul laments: “We got back from ‘Nam, we didn’t get nothin’ but a hard damn time…I’m tired of not gettin’ mine, man.”

A heist movie with the Vietnam War as its backdrop, Da 5 Bloods proceeds with crackling energy and chemistry among its main cast. Delroy Lindo, as Paul, undoubtedly puts forth the film’s best performance as the narrative’s focal center. A fascinatingly layered character, Lindo infuses true pathos to his role as a Trump-supporting ex-soldier, driven by a white-hot rage that stems from his public vilification when he returned from Vietnam all those years ago. Suffering from acute PTSD, Paul returns to Vietnam with venom in his veins and an animosity towards an enemy that no longer exists. Complicating matters is the arrival of his son, David (Jonathan Majors), angling for a cut of the lost gold under the guise of concern for his father’s well-being. It’s a frosty father-son dynamic characteristic of so many Spike Lee Joints, including a speck of repressed tenderness that shines through this broken relationship.

“Expertly juggling homage, action, and urgent commentary, [*Da 5 Bloods*] presents a harrowing tapestry of Black servicemen in Vietnam.”

There are many things to marvel at within Da 5 Bloods, but chief among them is Spike Lee’s bravura filmmaking. Expertly juggling homage, action, and urgent commentary, the film presents a harrowing vision of Black servicemen in Vietnam. Borrowing heavily - yet gracefully - from classics such as Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and John Huston’s The Treasure of Sierra Madre (at one point even commandeering the film’s famous “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges” line), Da 5 Bloods wears its influences proudly. The film also portrays a slew of real-life tidbits that would make any history buff’s head spin. From Crispus Attucks to Milton L. Olive III to the targeted propaganda of Hanoi Hannah, Lee dispenses a crash course in the tale of Vietnam, imperial America, and racism.

I would be remiss not to mention the work of cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (Three Kings, Bohemian Rhapsody), who expertly shifts among four different aspect ratios depending on when and where each scene is taking place - most notably, the film’s Vietnam flashbacks utilize a boxy, claustrophobic 1.33:1. It’s also interesting to point out that much of the film takes place in these decades-earlier flashbacks, but there was no effort made to digitally de-age the principal cast (a lá The Irishman). While this was partially a decision based on budget, it also works on a thematic level: I found it powerful rather than distracting - a profoundly affecting commentary on the bonds of memory and brotherhood.

There is, however, a frantic energy in Da 5 Bloods that works against it. Overstuffed at a 154-minute runtime, Lee’s frenzied excitement for his storytelling leads to a scattered narrative that leaves some hefty themes under-explored. Within the first thirty minutes of the film, Otis finds out that he unknowingly fathered a daughter with Tiên (Lê Y Lan), a Vietnamese woman with whom he had a relationship while he was stationed in Saigon. Through a heartfelt exchange, we learn that Tiên and her daughter, Michon (Sandy Huong Pham), have been treated as pariahs their entire lives - Tiên for “sleeping with the enemy,” and Michon for being of mixed race. Clarke Peters puts forth a bombshell performance with this sequence, but there isn’t much more to it other than Lee hanging a lampshade on the racial ramifications of GIs and their foreign dalliances. There’s a whole culture and history of Amerasians - a person born in Asia to an Asian mother and a U.S. military father - to be explored, but Da 5 Bloods has neither the focus nor the narrative economy to support it. Similarly, there is also a certain irony in utilizing the words of Muhammad Ali when our protagonists never really confront the atrocities they themselves have committed in the name of the American war machine; moreover, the Bloods return present-day to kill even more foreigners in the name of self-interest and greed. It’s here that Da 5 Bloods most muddles its message: It glosses over some difficult questions and subject matter in order to reveal the cogs of racism and the role that Black soldiers play in American expansion.

While Spike Lee fails to net everything in this exquisite juggling act, there is no doubt that Da 5 Bloods feels vital, urgent, and cathartic. Through the lens of current events, it’s hard to see the film as anything other than timely and relevant, but Lee makes a powerful statement about the enduring nature of racism and the American Way. Brimming with an unforgettable ensemble performance and moments of bitter insight and quiet triumph, Da 5 Bloods shines a light on inequity from a perspective rarely seen in cinema.