Movie Reviews: Da 5 Bloods (2020)

Genre: War Drama  

Director: Spike Lee  

Starring: Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Chadwick Boseman, Jonathan Majors, Melanie Thierry, Jean Reno, Paul Walter Hauser  

Running Time: 156 minutes  

Synopsis: Four black Vietnam War veterans (Delroy Lindo as Paul, Clarke Peters as Otis, Norm Lewis as Eddie, and Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Melvin) return to the country on a dual mission: find a cache of CIA gold they buried in the jungle during the war, and recover the remains of the inspirational fifth member of their group Norm (Chadwick Boseman). They are unexpectedly joined on their trek by Paul's estranged son David (Jonathan Majors). Although united by friendship, a sense of racial injustice, and wartime experiences, the group is tested by greed, mistrust, and trauma.

What Works Well: Spike Lee presents the Vietnam War experience as an epic collision between an unpopular overseas war and the continuing struggle for black rights at home. This is a sprawling journey into the past, the men's present psychology (especially Paul's PTSD) ill-equipping them to retrace hostile terrain. The country may have modernized, but not so much the jungle, where dangers from snakes to mines persist. With strong echoes of The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, greed is the most mammoth disrupter, and the seemingly tight knit group will discover that unimaginable wealth can threaten decades-long friendships forged under fire. Lee adds generous helpings of flashbacks to fill-in the men's combat-fueled backstory, as the war spills from the past into present moments of reckoning.

What Does Not Work As Well: The running time is excessive, with look-at-me editing adding to the test of endurance. Delroy Lindo's performance is powerful, but slips into over-the-top theatrics in the final act. The political preaching is of the in-your-face variety, the plot used as an unsubtle device to deliver rage-against-the-machine civics lessons.

Key Quote:

Paul: We fought in an immoral war that wasn't ours for rights we didn't have.

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