Da 5 Bloods

The excitement about this one was palpable. The highest profile film to be released in months. Spike Lee's latest joint. On Netflix no less. The trailer came out last month. It looked great. The soundtrack! Everyone knows Vietnam had the best tunes. That cast!! Full of well known Black faces. Faces from The Wire, Black Panther and of course Lee's own back catalogue. Then we heard it was over 2.5 hours long. Uh-oh. Was this going to be Spike Lee's own Deer Hunter?

Da Bloods are back in Vietnam. Not the 5 of them though. Otis (Clarke Peters), Paul (Delroy Lindo), Eddie (Norm Lewis) and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr) have returned to put things to right. 50 + years before they buried their squad leader Norman ( Chadwick Boseman) in the Vietnamese dirt and now it's time to locate him and repatriate his bones stateside. Being back in country takes it's toll on their psyches though and their well thought out plans soon come crashing down on them. Will they ever get out of Vietnam again? Did they ever really leave it in the first place.

Much has been made of Netflix's place in the Hollywood hierarchy. Are they a real studio? Should the movies they make even be considered cinema? Should their product be eligible for awards? Would a Netflix film ever be good enough for an Oscar? This one is. If Delroy Lindo isn't at least nominated for an acting Oscar in 2021 the whole thing is a farce (yes i know it's a farce anyway). It's very much an ensemble piece but his turn as Paul, a vet haunted by his actions all those years ago is just brilliant. A jungle rant direct to camera late in the film can stand proudly alongside similar moments in Do The Right Thing and The 25th Hour. He's the Black Vietnam experience distilled down to a man, treated like shit by his country, then forced to fight for his country, ruined by the experience and then treated like shit when he got home. Too proud to deal with his PTSD, he's come back to where it all started as a warped form of therapy and everything implodes once again. A phenomenal performance. Hateful, fuelled by rage but heartfelt and even tender in parts.

But that's not to take the rest of Da Bloods. Each get their moment to shine, an unexpected and potently emotional reunion, a backwards rant into disaster, a drunken bar roar, metal detector glee. The easy and genuine chemistry between the four is fun to experience, they feel like real friends and it's a joy to watch them interact which makes their trip into the jungle to find their friend drip with tension, especially when an encounter with an anti landmine group reminds us of the dangers laying ahead. Da 5 Bloods is much more than a trip down memory lane though. This is Spike Lee, he's always been a political film maker and his barbs about the Black American experience are always pointed. Black men were forced into a war for a country that despised them. The VC knew it and used it to cloud their minds. One scene of the squad learning of the death of Martin Luther King Jr. from VC propaganda is a killer. The rage pours off the screen and the primal screams are painful to hear. You can't help but tie it to the events of recent weeks. This film was done and dusted before the death of George Floyd and it does feel blisteringly topical but Lee takes aim at the system in a way that will allow the film to age well. He's not using a precision aim, he's going for the shotgun approach and it's a big target.

It sounds like a tough watch and it is quite gruelling in places but the fun and camaraderie between Da Bloods lightens the mood and takes the edge off Lee's usual sledgehammer touch. The film riffs on The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre and gives us film fans a nice in-joke. Ride Of The Valkyries is used in a far gentler way. A famous line from The Wire is quoted perfectly (You'll guess straight away who's going to say it) and we even get a nod to Lee's last outing 'Blackkklansman with a bit of gleefully meta revenge. Then near the end the story takes another twist and turns into something action fans can get their teeth into. This is where things get a bit silly and it feels like a bit of wish fulfillment on Lee's behalf especially when broad caricature (Jean Reno in full cheese mode) gets involved. It's having your cake and eating it too.

A silly climax aside this is a powerful watch about the scars wars leave behind. The physical can be dealt with, it's the psychological ones that really take their toll. Lee isn't subtle (one character flat out calls Trump a Klansman) but issues of war and race have to be dealt with bluntly. There's no other way. You know he's not messing about when he doesn't bother with de-aging effects in the flashback sequences. He knows things like this just don't matter and I loved that. He knows only one thing matters. Black Lives.

Da 5 Bloods is available to watch on Netflix now.