Da 5 Bloods Review

There are many excellent films about the Vietnam War and its affect on those who fought in it. Most if not all of America's military interventions in the last century have been motivated by imperialist warmongering, with little good to come of them, but the Vietnam War was shady and horrific even by those standards. Through the draft, the government culled countless individuals from undesired demoraphics, and permanently crippled an entire generation - and that's just what they did to our own citizens.

When the Vietnam War was reaching its peak, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. rocked the country. The War and Dr. King's assassination - and indeed the entirety of the 1960's Civil Rights movement - are almost always treated as entirely separate occurences in U.S. history - even writing this review, I have to remind myself that they more or less overlapped in the timeline of 20th century America. Despite this, there is a fundamental thread that links these two things together, about the fight for civil liberties and civilian autonomy, and about the oppression and exploitation of Black bodies in our country's history.

Da 5 Bloods is perhaps the first film I've encountered that dares to highlight this connection, portraying the draft and accompanying war as another brick in the wall of Black oppression; a way to split up the Black community and send countless of their young men off to die in the jungles of Vietnam, forced to fight for a country that won't even give them equal rights. They were promised the ability to win what was rightfully theirs, and all they got instead was a war that never truly ended.

The characters in Da 5 Bloods are haunted by the war, their lives utterly consumed and defined by it. Some of them have adjusted better than others, but all four of the remaining titular five Bloods are drawn back to the site of the war, where they once buried a crate of gold in the name of Black liberation. They return for the gold, and for the remains of their fallen fifth brother.

Their tour through the country of Vietnam is punctuated by explosive flashbacks filmed with a 4X3 aspect ratio and a film grain reminiscent of the late 60's-early 70's cinema, as well as frequent discussions about the past and at least one PTSD-triggered meltdown. Despite this, it sort of feels like a feel good reunion film that soon turns very, very bad. Things escalate, the local Viet Cong catch onto their plans to smuggle gold out of the country, and the bonds between the four of them are tested.

Da 5 Bloods' strongest attribute is in how well it conveys the idea that wars never truly end for those on the battlefield. There will always be a part of former soldiers that is still trapped in that hellscape of bullet fire and explosions. All the characters seem lost in some way, wandering about the landscape of Vietnam like a part of the destruction themselves, as much a live relic as the landmines still scattered throughout the jungle. The search for the gold is in many ways unimportant; what's important is that each of these people are drawn back to the hell they had left behind in intangible, inexplicable ways.

Of course, the gold also represents an extension of Black liberation, a sort of hard won reparations the characters are fighting to receive. They were forced into a war that wasn't theirs for a country that hated them, and with this quest, they finally decided to take something back for themselves, a reward that many of them plan to use to help the ongoing Black struggle.

This theme of Black Americans finally taking their lives and autonomy into their own hands runs rampant throughout, from the anger of the soldiers when they learn of Dr. King's assassination to the determination to return the gold to America to fund Black liberation. It's a theme that obviously runs deep in director Spike Lee's backlog, and here he funnels it through the backdrop of the Vietnam War.

Many consider this and BlacKkKlansman to be a sort of return to form for the legendary director, but I'm not entirely convinced that this is quite up to par with that one. It's a bit too meandering, whereas BlacKkKlansman was incredibly focused on its goals. The characters aren't quite as memorable, and the mixtures and experimentations with style, documentary footage and soundtrack aren't as interesting. Of all the characters, one pair is by far the most interesting; Paul, the Black soldiers-turned Trump supporter, who seems to have turned his back to the entire world out of an inability to move on from the death of his comrade and the horror's he's seen. His son, David, who tags along with them despite his father's objections, has always had a rocky relationship with him, and this provides the most interesting character arc and dynamic in the film. The rest of the characters only have a few moments, and generally aren't nearly as interesting.

Despite this, though, Da 5 Bloods is an ambitious film that sheds light on a facet of the Vietnam War that is rarely if ever given the time of day. With its themes of Black exploitation and struggle, it fits neatly alongside Lee's previous works like BlacKkKlansman and Do the Right Thing. It may not be the best film out there, but it's still worth a watch for anyone who wants to support Black voices in cinema.