Da 5 Bloods

So I don't usually do reviews for documentaries, at least not yet. But I felt it was relevant (and really wanted to note) that I watched the 10 part docuseries by Ken Burns on the Vietnam War prior to watching this movie. I highly recommend that movie in order to get a really in depth look into the Vietnam War, and you'll also understand some of the historical references they make in this film.

Da 5 Bloods follows the story of a group of Vietnam veterans returning to Vietnam in the present day to search for the remains of their fallen squad leader (played by Chadwick Boseman).

But the group is also going to recover a trove of gold they had buried during their time there.

The group is made up of four older black men. There's Otis, the medic (played by Clarke Peters), Paul, a harsh conservative man with pretty bad PTSD (played by Delroy Lindo), and Eddie and Melvin (played by Norm Lewis and Isiah Witlock Jr respectively) honestly they're a little harder to describe. Along with them is also Paul's son David (played by Jonathan Majors) who has a troubled relationship with his father.

Along the way they meet a slew of characters including a woman who Otis fathered a child with back during Vietnam (played by Le Y Lan), the fixer they are looking to move the gold through (played by Jean Russo), as well as a group of young people in Vietnam removing mines from the jungle.

The story is driven by the relationship between the core cast and them not only processing what happened to them in Vietnam in relation with the treatment of people of color not only in and during Vietnam, but in America and since Vietnam. Most notably, Delroy Lindo delivers a dynamite performance as an unreliably intense member of the group. He had the closest relationship with their squad leader and wants his remains to be found, but there's also an aspect throughout the group of "gold sickness" that... sort of works...

The first thing to know about this movie is that it follows the same stylistic choices you might see in other Spike Lee films.In fact some of the same effects and camera manipulation that was used in BlackkkKlansman is used in Da 5 Bloods. But there's other things worth mentioning that are kind of interesting. The movie jumps back and forth (honestly kind of infrequently) between the present and the time the men had in Vietnam. But instead of deaging the men or recasting them as younger people, you instead see a bunch of old guys running around the jungle with Chadwick Boseman. Or late in the film there's a scene where Delroy Lindo talks straight to camera in a really awesome soliloquy.

Overall the stylistic choices a bit of a mixed bag. The sound track contributes, creating this seemingly epic backdrop for a really interesting story. At the same time, some of the stylistic choices lead to gaps in the story. There's actually a part where one of the characters is captured off screen after having a really touching moment and I had to rewind to make sure I didn't miss anything. I didn't, it was just a little disjointed at times and I'm not sure if all of it was stylistic.

Which is odd because the movie is probably about a half hour too long. Prior to watching it, I heard someone say pretty succinctly that Da 5 Bloods felt like Netflix gave Spike Lee a blank check to make a movie and Lee wrote and shot everything off his first draft. And I would agree with that.

The whole story seems overly fleshed out in some areas like the character of Paul and his relationship with David, or the group's remembrance of their fallen squad leader, which was really good, while also feeling too thin on other areas like Eddie and Melvin's characters, or the random deminers they find, or the dynamics of Jean Russo's organization, or the build up of the "gold sickness".

At a certain point in the movie, somebody warns Otis that gold makes people go crazy, and it puts it in the mind of the audience that these guys are going to get greedy over the gold, but it doesn't really build very well. Yeah they have disagreements about people's shares, but the "money is the root of all evil" discussion happens very randomly and kind of out of no where. Maybe I was too used to the reasonableness I saw in Longshot earlier yesterday, but the "gold sickness" felt very unnecessary, especially when they inject other forces to create barriers for these guys to get home with no problem.

The movie is also kind of hamstringed by Spike Lee throwing in unorganic history lesson tidbits seemingly out of nowhere. For a lot of the movie the dialogue is really organic and while some of the main characters aren't as fleshed out as others, the chemistry between these guys is really good. Then all of a sudden a character out of nowhere will add a piece of black history really out of nowhere accompanied by historical pictures and facts thrown on screen. Maybe it's because I just watched the Ken Burns documentary and knew a lot of the facts they throw up on screen, but it feels very exposition-y for being facts that don't fully contribute to the story of these guys directly. I remember Lee doing that in BlackkKlansman but I also remember it feeling a lot more organic, while this felt disjointed with what is a really unique and intriguing story.

I've said it a couple of times, the performances in this movie are really good but Delroy Lindo stands out immensely. Again, the "gold sickness" was odd, but I felt with Lindo's character, it was more than that and he was definitely the character who was most developed.

Jonathan Majors also stood out. I'm glad he's continuing to get work, especially after what I saw from him in The Last Black Man in San Francisco.

Overall, I think the things that really carry this movie is the story. Four black Vets going back to Vietnam to recover their fallen brother's remains and gold is a really unique and harrowing story. I think I just wish there had been a couple of refinements. It's Spike Lee so you have to expect some current political commentary but while BlackkKlansman seemed to be a direct response to Charlottesville, this movie was likely in the can before it could be directly targetted as a response to the killing of George Floyd. And I think the broad message of black empowerment that Lee has in his films would have worked, especially considering the unique historical backdrop of this story, but the references to Trump, BLM, and other current events felt more scattershot and unrefined in this movie.

Overall, I liked Da 5 Bloods. It never felt too long, it just felt unrefined both on run time and use of style. I really enjoyed the characters, I just would have liked to learn more about the ones surrounding Delroy Lindo and Jonathan Majors. The story and the performances carry this movie through a lot of my critiques and if you're looking for something pretty unique as well as want to learn some history (and don't want to spend a long time watching 10 hour and a half long episodes of Ken Burn's Vietnam War docuseries) I do recommend Da 5 Bloods.

But those are my thoughts on Da 5 Bloods. What did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for future films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!