Movie Review - Da 5 Bloods

Spike Lee won his first, competitive Oscar with BlacKkKlansman (2018) at the 91st Academy Awards. Instead of resting on his laurels, he kept up the pace and followed up his Academy Award win with what I feel is an even better film. I don't know how the 93rd Academy Awards will go, but if there's any justice, Lee should be up for all the same categories as he was two years prior. This film has some similarities stylistically to BlacKkKlansman, as well as some of Lee's recent work, but, narrative-wise, this film is more a spiritual sequel to Lee's Miracle at St. Anna (2008), which was a film about Black soldiers in World War II. This film instead is about Black soldiers in the Vietnam War. However, instead of being another war picture simply depicting a group of young Black men on the battlefield engaging in the aforementioned combat, this film takes place in contemporary times and is about reflecting on that 40-year-old conflict, focusing on something that's rare in film, a group of older Black men, most middle-aged, being in the center of the action.

In a lot of ways, this film is Spike Lee's version of The Irishman (2019). Martin Scorsese directed The Irishman. He got more money to make it than he has any other film. He did it with a group of actors with whom he's mostly worked before. The average age of that group is over 60. It's also an epic story that flashes back and forth through time. That's what Scorsese got and did. It's also what Lee got and did here. I enjoyed The Irishman, but I would argue that this film is even better. This is mainly because unlike Scorsese, it doesn't feel like Lee is treading on ground that he's tread a million times before. It also doesn't feel like a commentary on his career like Scorsese's film, but, instead Lee's film feels like a bold step forward.

Delroy Lindo is a 67-year-old actor who marks his fourth time working with Spike Lee. Previously, he was in Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn (1994) and Clockers (1995). Lindo is to Lee arguably what Robert De Niro is to Scorsese. The comparison probably would have been more solid if Denzel Washington or Samuel L. Jackson were the lead actor here, but I think Lindo being in the lead allows this film not to fall into the Scorsese trap of relying too much on celebrity, big names or nostalgia. Here, Lindo plays Paul, a Vietnam veteran who since returning from war has become extremely anti-immigrant, so much so that he voted for President Donald Trump, based on Trump's border wall rhetoric.

Clarke Peters is 68 and most might recall him from his role on HBO's The Wire, but he also worked with Spike Lee in Red Hook Summer (2012). Here, Peters plays Otis, a Vietnam veteran who served in the same infantry as Paul. He worked as a medic during the war. His stance on immigration is seemingly opposite to Paul in that he had physical relations with a Vietnamese woman, while he was there, and has since kept in touch with her. Otis has the longest hair of the group, but he mostly wears a do-rag on his head.

Isiah Whitlock, Jr. is 65 and has popped up in small roles in numerous Spike Lee films, including 25th Hour (2002), She Hate Me (2004), Red Hook Summer (2012), Chi-Raq (2015) and BlacKkKlansman (2018). This is Whitlock's sixth collaboration with Lee. He also has a link to Scorsese in that Whitlock appeared in Goodfellas (1990). Whitlock also has an additional link to co-star Peters in that Whitlock was also in The Wire. Here, Whitlock plays Melvin, a Vietnam veteran who also served in the same infantry as Paul and Otis. He's a bit of the comic relief. He's married with a teenage son but he's a great sharpshooter. He notably doesn't want to sacrifice himself for others. He's the one in the red shirt, which doesn't end up having quite the same outcome as if he were in a Star Trek episode.

Norm Lewis is 57 and is the actor who has never worked with Spike Lee before. Lewis hasn't done much film or TV. Lewis is instead a Tony-nominated, Broadway star who has beautifully and handsomely graced the New York stage for decades. To maintain the comparison to The Irishman. Lewis is the Al Pacino of the group, except I don't think that Lewis gets as juicy a role as Pacino where he really gets to show his chops or dig into much of a character. However, the way that the screenplay, which is co-written by Lee, is set up, the majority of the film takes place over the course of one day, so there aren't many opportunities to dig into Lewis' character of Eddie. We basically get that he's seemingly wealthy with a successful car dealership, but that might just be an illusion. He also has a pigeon toe.

Lee doesn't make the film as long as The Irishman, but perhaps he should have in order to give more time to delve into the characters a little bit more deeply. The performances though are strong enough to carry us along. There are other things that bolster and even boost what this film is doing. A lot of those things are the stylistic choices that Lee makes as director. The first choice is the changing aspect ratio. For scenes that take place in present-day, the aspect ratio is widescreen and mostly shot digitally. However, for scenes that take place in the past, specifically in 1968, the film is shot in what's called Academy ratio. It also looks like it was shot on actual celluloid, either 35 mm or 16 mm. It contrasts with the present-day footage by looking more grainy and gritty, reinforcing how rough that time period was. Yet, the present-day footage, even though  mostly digital, provides for another kind of grittiness. The present-day scenes don't feel too clean, but instead hot and sweaty. Lee shoots those scenes in a way to make the audience feel the heat, making you feel like you're there with them in the actual locations in Vietnam where Lee filmed it.

There are some stylistic flourishes that Lee has incorporated in previous films and even into his TV series, She's Gotta Have It (2017). Lee clearly loves to bridge the gap between current circumstances and things that happened in the past. He made that point clear at the end of BlacKkKlansman where he connected the racism of the 60's and 70's to racism in the current times, particularly the times under the Trump administration, specifically the Charlottesville protest. He does the same here. Here, he's connecting the treatment and regard of Black people during the Vietnam War to Black Lives Matter, which is particularly important this year, coming in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the subsequent protests that have erupted in late May and early June 2020.

Yes, there have been a myriad of films about the Vietnam War. Lee even references the most well-known film about the subject, that of Apocalypse Now (1979). There's a blatant reference at the top, as well as the use of the iconic "Ride of the Valkyries," which is now firmly associated with that Francis Ford Coppola flick. That film of course had Black soldiers in it. Other films about Vietnam like Platoon (1986), Hamburger Hill (1987) and Full Metal Jacket (1987) also had Black soldiers, but those films were more about the horrors of war. They didn't tackle the racial and sociopolitical implications, particular to Black people, that were occurring at the time. It's those same racial and sociopolitical implications that are occurring now, which is why the George Floyd protests were as big and as long-lasting as they were, which is also why Lee's film is so prescient and important.

A film like Jason's Lyric (1994) was able to comment on the effects that the Vietnam War had on Black soldiers and Black families in the aftermath of it. Forest Whitaker brilliantly portrayed that, but his role in that 1994 film was very brief. A film like The Walking Dead (1995) was about the Black experience in Vietnam but was a more sensational, action flick that was more about bullets and the explosions. It's not to say that Lee doesn't have a good amount of action here, but it's not as sensationalized and over-the-top. It's action that is slickly and superbly done, and puts good use to its stars, again whose average age is over 60.

Speaking of which, the four main actors portray themselves in present-day Vietnam, as well as themselves in the 1960's. Younger actors weren't utilized. Unlike The Irishman, Lee didn't get a hundred million dollars in order to use CGI or VFX to de-age the actors faces and make them look age-appropriate. The only exception was in a photograph (pictured to the right) that seeemed altered so that the actors looked younger. I dare say though that Lee didn't even use makeup and hair-styling much in those flashbacks. If I'm not mistaken, the younger versions of the characters still had grey hairs in those scenes. I get that young people can have grey hairs, but I doubt that that was the choice behind it. Maybe it's purposeful or maybe it's lazy. It reminds of the criticism Tyler Perry received after the release of A Fall From Grace (2020) when the hair choices for Mehcad Brooks were mocked, due to the seeming rush job of it.

Rounding out the cast are a wealth of very interesting actors, including French film star, Jean Reno, as well as Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther and 42) who plays Norman, the Vietnam vet who died in the war but whose body was lost in the countryside, thus propelling Paul, Otis, Melvin and Eddie to return to Vietnam to recover him. There's also a plot involving gold bars that's reminiscent of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Three Kings (1999) and Triple Frontier (2019). Yet, I have to give a special shout-out to Jonathan Majors who only started acting in 2017 but who quickly made a name for himself in The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019). He's great here as David, the son to Paul who is dealing with not only the trauma from the war but also the trauma of the death of his mother. It makes me curious to see more from Majors in the future.

Rated R for strong violence, grisly images and pervasive language.

Running Time: 2 hrs. and 35 mins.

Available on Netflix.