Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Da 5 Bloods’ on Netflix, Spike Lee’s Powerful Vietnam War Epic

Spike Lee releases a new movie every two or three years, and Da 5 Bloods arrives on Netflix with an almost eerie serendipity. The irrepressible filmmaker’s eruptive Vietnam War epic jibes perfectly with the irrepressible current conversation on racism in America, not because Lee is lucky or clairvoyant, but because the subject has been the throughline of his 40-year filmmaking career. Some of his films are classics (Do the Right Thing, 25th Hour, BlacKKKlansman), some less so, but all are unceasingly relevant. 

DA 5 BLOODS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Da 5 Bloods opens with footage of Muhammad Ali speaking on why he won’t fight in Vietnam, implying that the most relevant war for African-Americans needs to be fought at home. Five black men learned this the hard way: Norman (Chadwick Boseman), Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis) and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), a tight squadron who dubbed themselves Da Bloods, were bivouacked in the Vietnamese jungle when a radio report announced the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In that moment, they realize they’re fighting for a country that considers them lesser citizens. And they’re angry. Norman is the leader, and tells them to own and control their rage. They touch fists. Then they howl in frustration, firing their M-16s into the air.

Sadly, Norman wouldn’t make it out of Vietnam alive. Fifty years later, the four survivors reconvene in Vietnam for a quest to retrieve his remains, at long last. Oh, and there’s the matter of a lost case of gold bullion, which they found and lost and want to find again. They hop a boat to head up river, and Ride of the Valkyries soundtracks the trip. Melvin is the goofball, Eddie is the big shot owner of car dealerships, Otis is the steadying force and Paul — well, Paul is deeply troubled. They all have PTSD, but Paul still talks to Norman. His struggles surmounted over the years, and now he’s prone to scary, stormy outbursts. They guys chatter about the Rambo and Chuck Norris movies were propagandist trash; he begs to differ. He also voted for Trump, and wears his red “Make America Great Again” ballcap into the jungle. Go. Figure.

Da 5 Bloods cuts between the crisp widescreen present and the grainy 4:3 past. Back then, Da Bloods engage in hairy firefights. Here and now, they smack mosquitoes, limp on bad hips and squabble about not-inconsequential things. What with one thing and another, Paul’s son David (Jonathan Majors) is their ceremonial fifth Blood, they make a deal with a Frenchman (Jean Reno) to exchange the gold and get their money out of the country, and they cross paths with a trio of landmine hunters (Melanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser and Jasper Paakkonen). There will be blood, there will be Marvin Gaye songs, there will be a soliloquy, there will be the Dolly Shot, there will be the righteous fury of a Spike Lee joint.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The film ticks several genre boxes: The reunion-of-old-people, but this ain’t The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel; think reunion-of-old-soldiers, a la Last Flag Flying. The treasure hunt, a la The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, or more on-the-nose, the treasure-hunt-in-the-middle-of-a-war, a la Three Kings. The violent Vietnam epic, a la Platoon or The Deer Hunter, or more accurately, the quest-up-the-river Vietnam epic, a la Apocalypse Now. And finally, the Spike Lee war-through-the-black-man’s-eyes epic, a la his WWII film Miracle at St. Anna.

Performance Worth Watching: Lindo is given the grandest character arc. I promise I’m not saying too much when I reveal he’s the deliverer of the direct-address soliloquy, and it’s powerful.

Memorable Dialogue: Paul’s lament: “I see ghosts, y’all. I see… ghosts.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: I’m sad to report that the MAGA hat survives all manner of harrowing, deadly adventures, a provocative visual motif that turns up over and over again like a bad penny. This is intentional. These guys fought for a country built and thriving on systemic racism, and an opportunity to get their own demands a fiery symbol reminding them that America was never all that great for black people. It concisely illustrates how Da 5 Bloods is poignant and patently ridiculous, and darkly comic, and wrenchingly tragic, and a broiling pot of melted, mixed emotions that feels so terrifically and terribly American, especially right now.

I know. All of the aforementioned is not at all concise, but that, Lee frequently asserts in his films, is merely fallout from ages of political and emotional tumult. It’s a convincing argument, even when you wish his characters were a little more crisply defined, and his tone a little less hodgepodged. The film is a freewheeling conglomeration of action-flick thrills, startling gore, trenchant laughs and wrenching sadness. Lee is as keen to reference classic cinema as he is to cut away to stills of Aretha Franklin or 18-year-old Medal of Honor recipient Melvin Olive, who threw himself on a grenade, sacrificing to save his fellow Vietnam War combatants. Did you learn about Melvin Olive in school? No? Well, goddammit, you should’ve, Lee asserts.

The flashbacks seem dreamlike, frozen in time, as those moments no doubt still haunt Paul, Otis, Eddie and Melvin. Cleverly, Lee doesn’t de-age his actors in these sequences, suggesting their inability to shake the past from their present. What happens in the jungle stays in the jungle. But we all know it really doesn’t.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The war rages on.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Da 5 Bloods on Netflix