DA 5 BLOODS hits Netflix Friday, June 12th.
PLOT: Four black Vietnam vets (Delroy Lindo, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and Clarke Peters) reunite decades later to recover the body of their former C.O and the $17 million in gold they hid back when they were soldiers.
REVIEW: DA 5 BLOODS couldn't possibly come out at a more relevant time given all that's happening in the world today. The plight of black Vietnam veterans has rarely been dealt with on the big screen, outside of a few movies like THE WALKING DEAD (yes – there's another "Walking Dead") and the underrated DEAD PRESIDENTS. Yet, despite being only 13% of the U.S population at the time, they made up 25% of the soldiers – a sobering statistic.
This isn't Spike Lee's first war movie (MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA) but it feels like his opus, being the perfect vehicle to play with the docudrama technique he used in BLACKkKLANSMAN (where there are documentary asides cut into the film) while making something that's undeniably massive in scale. With the multiple aspect ratios and high voltage action scenes, it feels like a movie that was made to be seen in theaters, although the plus side of it being on Netflix is that now hopefully everyone will watch.
The premise is a good one – and intentionally reminiscent of THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE, with characters recreating Walter Huston's "we're gonna be rich" shuffle and another character even saying "we don't need no stinkin' badges". While as provocative as anything he's ever done, with the de facto lead, Delroy Lindo, playing a Trump supporter who wears a MAGA hat throughout, it's still a rock-solid action thriller, with some truly outstanding performances by actors who've routinely been short-shifted on the big screen.
While Chadwick Boseman is the biggest name, his role is small, and mostly regulated to their flashbacks, where he plays their beloved comrade "Stormin' Norman", who gives the guys the idea to steal all the gold to help finance the black revolution back home. In a smart counterpoint to THE IRISHMAN, Spike Lee has the older actors all play their younger selves without any CGI to roll back the decades. The idea is that these are memories, and it's a testament to his faith in the audience that you never question it. The choice works.
In many ways, DA 5 BLOODS is Delroy Lindo's movie, with his performance fierce. He's the most PTSD riddled of the gang and the one who's most likely to go "off" when they return to the jungle, but despite his MAGA support, which could have made him into a cartoonish character, he has a whole lot of depth. His son, played by up-and-comer Jonathan Majors (in a terrific performance that could propel him to the A-list), is along for the ride, and of all the guys, when things go sideways in the jungle, he's the most in tune with the old ways from NAM. By contrast, Clarke Peters is the most level-headed, being mostly interested in returning to check in on an old flame, but also dealing with an opioid addiction that puts him at odds with the group almost as soon as they set foot in the jungle. Norm Lewis plays the most socially conscious one, and the only member interested in donating the loot to a cause like Black Lives Matter, while Isiah Whitlock Jr is the regular guy who gets all the best lines, including the one he's most famous for (you know what it is…).
Lee also casts two of his baddies from BLACKkKLANSMAN, Jasper Pääkkönen, and Paul Walter Hauser, along with Melanie Thierry in sympathetic, good guy roles this time, with them a group deactivating landmines in the jungle. Thierry and Majors have a good dynamic, being clearly attracted to each other, putting him at odds with Pääkkönen, although it’s his father who seems the most threatened because it undermines his authority over his headstrong, estranged son. Johnny Trí Nguyen, who’s a big action star in Vietnam, has a good role as their conflicted guide, while Jean Reno is probably the movie’s only truly venal character, a devious money launderer the guys want to use to clean their money. As expected, the soundtrack is tops, with Terence Blanchard composing a soulful score peppered with several classic Marvin Gaye tracks, including a few that strip away the music in order to isolate his vocals, which punctuates the action in a memorable way towards the climax.
While running north of 150 minutes, DA 5 BLOODS is well-paced, with some solid action and a three-dimensional look at the war, with it being one of the few movies set in Nam to use subtitles in a way that humanizes the North Vietnamese. Lee uses three aspect ratios, 1:33:1 for the flashbacks, 1:85 for the parts in Saigon, and 2:35:1 when the guys get back into the jungle. While some of his choices, such as a legit soliloquy for Lindo, might strike some as indulgent, to me it's refreshing that as he's gotten older Lee's continued to push himself. This is for sure his most action-driven film to date, and one that has a strong message of solidarity that's worth keeping in mind throughout these complicated times.