Da 5 Bloods

After accepting his Academy Award for the screenplay of BlackKklansman, Spike Lee went to Thailand to begin filming this modern epic Vietnam war movie, which in any era would be a powerful and important political film. That it falls onto Netflix now—and I think it was always going to—seems like perfect timing. The film is set in the present day, with four African-American veterans Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) intending to go and recover a buried comrade, Norman, who was an important figure in their young lives.

The film is partly a political history lesson from Spike Lee, with a script that wasn’t developed for him and was once in the hands of Oliver Stone. Lee begins with Muhammad Ali denouncing the war before getting into these guys: one has become a Trump guy (because there are African-American Trump guys); one of them has a daughter in Vietnam. Lee paints a rich story of veterans who’ve stayed bonded by their experience even if they’ve subsequently gone in different directions with their lives. There’s a scene in a bar in Ho Chi Minh City called Apocalypse Now, and although it seems like something so incredibly on-the-nose, it’s a real place. Not that Spike Lee isn’t having fun: the film will later reference Apocalypse Now in a moment that’s a welcome joyful laugh in any time.

There’s archive footage, there’s still images of historical figures that are mentioned—like the first African American to be killed in military service, and there’s Marvin Gaye as you know him and in an a cappella What’s Going On. In the present day scenes it’s a beautiful wide-screen epic that deserves a big screen, but when it goes back to the war it switches to a retro 4:3 aspect ratio and grainy-looking film. It also becomes an adventure story and a morality tale—there’s even a reference to “stinkin’ badges” from The Treasure of The Sierra Madre. And there are some utterly tense fire-fights and later on a situation with land-mine in a jungle that still has the relics from war. The easy-going men who’re fine in certain circumstances have prejudices and anger re-awoken in them as they’re back in a land for which they fought. Just as there’s a high percentage of African Americans in prison now, back in the Vietnam war they were five percent of the population but thirty percent of the soldiers. And they were fighting for a country that denied them the civil rights enjoyed by white people. Radio Hanoi’s propaganda voice Hanoi Hannah (who died in 2016) broadcast to GI’s and urged them to give up the fight. She is depicted often in this film, notably breaking the news of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King to the soldiers.

Da 5 Bloods is a tremendous film experience: it’s got the sorrow and anger of Spike Lee’s more recent output, comple

mented with his trade-mark through line of history from the entire span of the United States right up to right now. It’s also acted perfectly by the whole cast: there are moments of such genuine tenderness between some of the men. Delroy Lino’s character is particularly fascinating and what he has to do lifts the film further towards greatness. There’s an authenticity, and a sensitivity to the representation of all the players in the history of Vietnam: a businessman recalling the fifties French involvement in Indochina is played by an always-sensational Jean Reno.

 And the conclusion directly references “Black Lives Matter”, and extracts from a tangled historical and political situation a conclusion that’s somehow positive and affirming.