Summary
Spike Lee’s ambitious tale is not only an essential movie for our times, but easily one of the best films of a turbulent 2020.
Of course it was going to be Spike Lee’s latest joint that would shake us out of our complacency while reminding us of the power of movies and history.
Following on from the timely gut-punch of BlacKkKlansman, DA 5 BLOODS arrives in the middle of a real-time movement. Back in 2018, I commented that Lee’s previous film was “a response to a country in crisis.” If that was the case, then this film is a dialogue with a world that has reached the same crisis point.
In the present day, former soldiers Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) reunite in Vietnam, ostensibly to pay tribute to their deceased squad leader Norman (played in flashbacks by Chadwick Boseman). In reality, they are there to also bring back some CIA gold they recovered from a crashed helicopter during the war. As they confront their past, it’s safe to say that Lee’s script (co-written with Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo, and Kevin Willmott) takes some unexpected turns.
You know that cliche you see in reviews that says “an emotional rollercoaster”? Yeah, that phrase was made for this film. While there are superficial similarities with previous films, not least of which is John Woo’s Bullet in the Head (1990), Lee’s familiarity with both history and cinema takes all of these on board with a knowing wink. After all, in the present day the group dances against the backdrop of an Apocalype Now banner.
The war is merely a vehicle to demonstrate a wider point. Lee uses every inch of the cinematic language to examine past and current injustices America has committed to people of colour. Shifting aspect ratios between periods, from a glorious widescreen in the opening sequence and a 4:3 aspect for flashbacks, he adds his trademark flair with documentary and photographic inserts and a complete breaking of the fourth wall.
The effect is a powerful one. While some may argue that it leads to a chaotic or perhaps even ‘messy’ collection of scenes, the opposite is true. It allows Lee a flexibility to move seamlessly between eras, incorporating various moments of America’s culpability in systematic racism on a global scale. These issues, Lee seems to be constantly reminding us, are neither new nor surface-level.
It also means that audiences can never be sure exactly where the film is going. While one of the group’s interim goals is reached at around the halfway mark of the film, several massive turns will keep viewers on their toes for the remainder of the explosive narrative. It’s fair to say that if you stripped away everything else, Lee’s film still has a ripper of an adventure as its backbone.
Boseman’s flashbacks introduce the beating heart of the film, a fierce reiteration of black pride that forms the bond between the group. It all culminates in a Paul’s speech in the final act of the film, an impassioned moment in which he declares his refusal to die despite the ills the world has thrown and continues to throw at them.
When the main action is done, Lee optimistically inserts a clip from Martin Luther King Jr. made in the year before he died. “America never was America to me,” he proclaims. “And yet I swear this oath – America will be.” It is not the future any of them envisaged, but they will continue to fight for it.
If there is anybody wondering why the Black Lives Matter movement has reached a global audience now, DA 5 BLOODS resoundingly reminds us of why it should have been sooner. An essential movie for 2020, and it might just be one of the best of the year so far.
2020 | US | DIRECTOR: Spike Lee | WRITERS: Danny Bilson, Spike Lee, Paul De Meo, Kevin Willmott | CAST: Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Mélanie Thierry, Paul Walter Hauser, Jasper Pääkkönen, Jean Reno, Chadwick Boseman | DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix| RUNNING TIME: 155 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 12 June 2020
