Review: Da 5 Bloods

Image courtesy of Netflix.

Spike Lee's powerful new film, "Da 5 Bloods," provides a history of the past 50 years in America through a series of quick, iconic snippets - the moon landing, Johnson announcing he won't seek another term and Nixon resigning, the killings at Kent State, a helicopter being pushed overboard following Operation Frequent Wind, the execution of Viet Cong member Nguyen Van Lem and speeches about the war in Vietnam and African Americans' struggles by Malcolm X, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis and Kwame Ture - but it's a Martin Luther King Jr. speech, which took place about a year before his assassination, culminating the picture that truly captures its essence.

Reading from Langston Hughes's "Let America Be America Again" - chosen for many reasons, most likely, but especially as a rebuttal to "Make America Great Again" - MLK reads:

O yes, I say it plain
America was never America to me
And yet I swear this oath
America shall be!

It's an unexpectedly hopeful way to end a film that goes to some pretty dark places and ends with a series of violent, bloody scenes. But Lee's film ends on a note of optimism using historical footage that bookends the story well, just as "BlackKklansman" culminated with the emotional gut punch of the scene in Charlottesville.

Lee's work has always been prescient and consistently interesting - even in films that don't quite work, such as "Da Sweet Blood of Jesus" or "She Hate Me" - but he's recently been on fire. "BlackKklansman" was his best film in two decades (and one of his best overall) and "Da 5 Bloods" would also rank highly in his overall body of work.

The director has tackled the topic of black veterans before - with the World War II-set "Miracle at St. Anna" - but this new film does so with much greater success. The film follows the story of four Vietnam vets - who call each other "bloods" - named Otis (Clarke Peters), the voice of reason among the group; Eddie (Norm Lewis), who owns a successful car dealership; Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), the joker of the group; and Paul (Delroy Lindo), a troubled man whose demons are just below the surface.

At the film's beginning, the men have a reunion in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) with a mission on their mind - they will attempt to exhume the body of their former squad leader, Stormin' Norman (Chadwick Boseman), who was killed in Vietnam, and dig up a box of gold bars they buried years before in the jungle. Norman, portrayed in flashback, is a mythical presence - Otis refers to him as the group's "Martin and Malcolm" - who schools the group on black history - from Crispus Attucks, the first black man killed in the American revolution, to Milton Olive III, the first black soldier in Vietnam to be awarded the Medal of Honor - and counsels them through MLK's death.

Tensions soon arise after the four men reunite. Otis reconnects with Tien (Y. Lan), an old flame with whom he learns he has a daughter, and Paul doesn't trust her; plus, the slightly shady French smuggler (Jean Reno) with whom they'll work to get the gold out of Vietnam doesn't inspire much confidence. There's also a group led by a young Frenchwoman, Hedy (Melanie Thierry), that dismantles bombs and joins up with the veterans, and David becomes interested in Hedy, causing a rift with Paul, who doesn't trust Hedy or her group's other two members.

Also, Paul's bitterness and anger threaten to explode at any minute. Just moments after a joyous dance sequence during which the Bloods seem to float across the dance floor at a nightclub to Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up" - which bears similarity to the cathartic moment in "BlackKklansman" during which the characters did the same to the Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose's "Too Late to Turn Back Now" - the other three men learn that Paul is a Trump supporter.

Not only does he advocate for building the wall on Mexico's border, but he has anti-immigrant tendencies and seems to recoil whenever he comes into contact with the Vietnamese - most notably, during a scene in which the men travel down a river on a boat and are approached by merchants. Paul dons a MAGA hat throughout the film, and it occasionally passes to other characters, becoming almost a character in itself. Otis is shocked that Paul could support "President Fake Bone Spurs," while Paul's own son refers to the "klansman in the White House."

While Trump is obviously a presence in the film - and viewed as dangerous - Paul's character is also the most complex, a man whose country has failed him and who - rather than leaning toward empathy as Otis does - has been swayed by the MAGA tenet of selfishness, even when it's at other's expense. A character who could have been a caricature, Paul is a fascinating individual, and what goes a long way in making him so is Lindo's terrific performance - probably the best I've seen this year so far. Often wearing more than one emotion on his face at a time, Lindo gives a titanic performance that reaches its crescendo during a long monologue directly into the camera as he wanders lost in the jungle.

In terms of plot, Lee borrows from some other films - "Apocalypse Now" and especially "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," even replicating two of that film's scenes - but he makes the references feel like an homage, rather than regurgitation. One particularly effective stylistic touch is Lee's use of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" album - the film uses seven tracks at various points in the film to comment on the action.

But, perhaps, the most interesting stylistic touch in the picture is in the flashback scenes. Rather than using special effects - as "The Irishman" did - to de-age the characters, all four of the older actors look exactly the same in flashback, with Boseman looking obviously younger, as they do in the present. While some might question why Lee didn't instead choose four younger actors to portray the characters in flashback, there are some hints to explain his choice.

At more than one point, characters in the film note that those who take part in a war never actually leave it - for them, it never actually ends, as certainly evidenced by Paul. This, coupled with the possibility that the flashbacks are meant to be the four surviving men viewing their experiences again through older eyes, is likely the explanation for how they are portrayed during the flashbacks. These men are still reliving their traumatic experiences, and so the scenes in flashback remain raw to them 50 years later.

"Da 5 Bloods" is, at times, not quite as smooth in transitioning from various tones, such as humor to horror, as "BlackKklansman" was, but its ambition, heart, terrific performances and remarkable timeliness - there's even a Black Lives Matter sequence late in the movie - make for a great viewing experience, regardless. Its four lead characters are men who made sacrifices to a country that refused to grant them equal rights when they returned home - but despite America never living up to the  promise of freedom it claims to provide for its citizens, similar to Langston Hughes's oath in "Let America Be America Again," the film's characters hold out hope that someday it will. The finale of Lee's film shows that the director holds out that same hope. This is one of the year's best movies.