“Da 5 Bloods” Review: The Ghosts of an Immoral War
Disclaimer: Da 5 Bloods is an African American narrative. My perspective as a White individual can only go so far in the viewing and analysis of this film. Know that this piece has been written from that perspective.
Spike Lee is no stranger to confronting the issues surrounding the treatment of African Americans in the United States. His new film, Da 5 Bloods, does just that, delving into an underrepresented African American perspective of the Vietnam War. However, like many of his other socially conscious movies, Da 5 Bloods isn’t just about the Vietnam War, it’s about people who face many different types of adversity from racism, to PTSD, to broken family connections, and more. Like the film reiterates many times, and like the present state of the US seems to reiterate every day, these are wars that never really end. For many of those who fought in Vietnam, their wars still rage on in the form of post traumatic stress. The racism that minorities face by the hands of the United States is a war that continues to rage on, whether it’s in the jungles of a foreign country fighting an “immoral war” or at home on the streets of their own cities. Da 5 Bloods encapsulates a lot of painful realities for many people, some of which are all too human to not empathize with in one way or another.
Set in present-day Vietnam, the film follows four Vietnam War veterans who were part of an all-black squad known as the Bloods. They return to the country in search of the remains of their fallen comrade, Stormin’ Norm (Chadwick Boseman) in an attempt to finally bring him home as they had promised during the war. However, this is only part of their mission, as they’re also secretly on the hunt for a supply of gold that they found during the war but lost after the surrounding areas were deformed by repeated napalm and explosive attacks. And, of course, there are other parties that also have an interest in the gold and would rather the Bloods not keep it for themselves. The journey proves to be a hard one, putting the connection that the Bloods have to the test both physically and emotionally. The story is told through many flashbacks to the Vietnam War, using it as a clever way to mold the present-day narrative in ways that can be quite unexpected at times. Spike Lee also chose to highlight some historically important African Americans throughout the film through the use of rapid cutaways that gives the movie a deeper historical context in many ways.
The movie starts off somewhat slow as it really takes its time setting up all the characters. This actually pays off in the long run, as the time invested in setting up the story and the many players involved reduces the need for introductions later on in the movie when its narrative momentum is in full gear. And although the film does pick up quite a bit after the first act, there are definitely some questionable pacing choices made throughout the film. I understand that it’s a stylistic choice to hard cut from one scene to another, but doing so as often as this film does really made me aware of it and sometimes made me totally shift my emotional grasp on the movie from the scene that was on previously to the scene it cut to. During some pretty big emotional moments where the scene moves straight into the next with a very different tone than the last, almost like someone forgot to put a period between two different sentences. I think allowing some scenes to breathe a little bit may have helped the pacing in some places, but it didn’t detract too much from the movie as a whole.
One of the highlights of Da 5 Bloods is the acting, especially from lead actor Delroy Lindo, playing the stubborn, hardened vet, Paul, who is haunted by losing his friend Stormin’ Norm during the war. He certainly has the most emotionally complex arc in the film and is also the most emotionally volatile as a character, jumping from fits of rage in one moment to breaking down and weeping in the next. His poor relationship with his son David (Jonathan Majors) is brutal and heartbreaking but also beautiful at times. While Lindo’s performance stood out as the best in the film, the other Bloods are great as well and their chemistry seemed realistic while also functioning well in the film. One of Lee’s more interesting choices was not casting younger versions of the Bloods for the flashbacks to the war. In the flashbacks, the Bloods are all their current older selves except for Norm, who they only remember younger as he died in battle before he could grow old. I guess it makes sense that the older Bloods would picture their current selves in the flashbacks even if it isn’t a very ‘Hollywood’ choice to abstain from young and popular actors for the war sequences. Da 5 Bloods is also pretty interesting on a technical level. The aspect ratio or screen size shifts between the standard widescreen format for the present-day sections and a smaller, more square size (shot on 16mm) for the flashbacks, giving them a grittier, almost documentary-like feeling.
Spike Lee’s social commentary runs throughout this film and doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to directly criticizing the state of America right now. Although the film was made before the current protests for George Floyd and African American inequality in the U.S., it only furthers the point that this is not a new problem the country is facing. The film references how the poor treatment of African Americans has plagued the U.S. since the first enslaved people were brought to this land from Africa in 1619. It shines a more particular light on how African Americans have been treated in wars throughout the United States’ history, pointing out that during the Vietnam War, African Americans were only 11% of the U.S. population but accounted for 32% of the U.S. troops sent to Vietnam. One of the more powerful points is that the Bloods are fighting an immoral war to supposedly protect rights that they don’t even have back home. Lee also makes sure to include a reference to Crispus Attucks, a man of African and Native American descent and the first person killed in the Boston massacre, thus the first person killed in the American Revolution. The director doesn’t mind taking a swing at the beloved George Washington either, reminding us that he owned 123 slaves. By sprinkling in these references throughout the film, Lee subtly paints the picture that the U.S. has been built on the backs of Black men and women in more ways than one, and that the history of this country we’re told through popular media like film and television is completely whitewashed. If you think about it, how many Vietnam War movies are from African American perspectives? Not too many. At least now we have this one.
This film does a great job at encapsulating a lot of historical issues into one cohesive narrative that works independently of the commentary that Lee has injected. It is a war film but it’s not solely about the Vietnam War or any specific war for that matter. The wars that people go through on a personal or social level everyday also come through in this story. This is one Spike Lee joint you’re not going to want to miss and will give you a more complete understanding of the immoral wars that follow us all.
