Da 5 Bloods

Spike Lee’s fol­low up to his Oscar-win­ning BlacK­kKlans­man arrives on Net­flix with almost prophet­ic rel­e­van­cy for the civ­il rights upris­ing that is cur­rent­ly engulf­ing Amer­i­ca and oth­er parts of the world.

Da 5 Bloods is the epic yet per­son­al tale of four vet­er­ans who return to Viet­nam to reclaim their commander’s remains and the trea­sure they con­sid­er repa­ra­tions. The nar­ra­tive switch­es back and forth from their time in the war under the ever-charis­mat­ic Chad­wick Boseman’s lead­er­ship to the present day.

The actors play both the younger and old­er ver­sions of their char­ac­ters, with no attempt to de-age them; instead Lee shoots the flash­backs in a style rem­i­nis­cent of an ​’80s B‑movie, with over­sat­u­rat­ed colours and car­toon­ish gore. The present is imbued with a more nat­u­ral­is­tic grim­ness though not devoid of Lee’s humour and sig­na­ture flourishes.

The tim­ing of this film could not be more per­fect: mono­logues on har­ness­ing black rage play out over the riots that fol­lowed Mar­tin Luther King Jr’s assas­si­na­tion, the biggest civ­il rights demon­stra­tions in US his­to­ry hith­er­to the mur­der of George Floyd. Lines like, ​“Every time I walk out my front door, I see cops patrolling my neigh­bour­ing like it’s some kind of police state; I can feel just how much I ain’t worth,” and, ​“We ain’t gonna let any­one use our rage against us,” seem to speak direct­ly to the events of the past few weeks.

Lee packs a lot into this film, address­ing black trau­ma, addic­tion, father­hood, white sav­iourism, the inglo­ri­ous­ness of war, vio­lence and hero­ism. To be a war hero in Da 5 Bloods isn’t to storm into vil­lages Ram­bo-style – kick­ing ass and sav­ing the day – it is to be like Mil­ton L Olive III, throw­ing your body onto land mines to pro­tect your fel­low sol­diers and dis­in­te­grat­ing into a pile of blood, sinew and bone.

Pres­i­dent Fake Bone Spurs is a fre­quent punch­ing bag with MAGA hats employed as qua­si-cursed objects. Amer­i­can Impe­ri­al­ism and white suprema­cy loom large over both Da Bloods and the Viet­namese char­ac­ters but their trau­ma only serves to fuel their dis­trust of one another.

The main cast is sol­id, with a joy­ful, lan­guid chem­istry, but the stand-outs are Lin­do and Bose­man as a PTSD-addled Trump sup­port­er and ​“the best damn sol­dier that ever lived” respec­tive­ly. Both are glo­ri­ous­ly unhinged, trag­ic and fas­ci­nat­ing. Lindo’s por­tray­al of Paul is drip­ping in pathos, his strength as a sol­dier ago­nis­ing­ly con­trasts his inept­ness as a father; his trau­ma has ren­dered him unfit for any­thing but war. Regret­tably, Lee’s pen­chant for thin­ly-drawn female char­ac­ters is present, with Mélanie Thier­ry and Van Veron­i­ca Ngo bare­ly registering.

This is a supreme­ly craft­ed film, with each character’s arc reach­ing a poet­ic con­clu­sion as a case of Chekhov’s guns are fired in suc­ces­sion. The epi­logue is a slight mis­step, dulling the impact of the end­ing, but this is still one of Lee’s finest works and a wel­come reminder of his vital­i­ty and val­ue as a filmmaker.