The director’s latest is a searing Vietnam War epic that speaks to this moment—and it’s on Netflix, so viewers can revisit it again and again.
“War is about money. Money is about war. Every time I walk out my front door, I see cops patrolling my neighborhood like it’s some kind of police state. I can feel just how much I ain’t worth.” So says Stormin’ Norman (played by Chadwick Boseman), the mythic figure at the center of Spike Lee’s bombastic war epic Da 5 Bloods (out on Netflix today). Norman says those words in 1970s Vietnam, and this film was made before the current wave of global protests against police brutality, but the sentiment feels urgent. Lee, in his inimitable way, is prodding his audience to pay attention and realize that, even as history marches on, the same battles are still being fought.
Lee is not a taciturn filmmaker. His cinematic language includes bravura flourishes such as characters looking down the camera to address the audience, signature double-dolly shots, the interpolation of real-life footage, and beautifully florid monologues that flesh out deeper themes. Since he emerged in the ’80s, Lee has been one of American cinema’s most compelling filmmakers, but there’s a reason his grandiloquent style has been so resonant of late (his last film, BlacKkKlansman, earned him his first competitive Oscar). His agitation matches a world of headlines blaring unrelentingly dystopian news.
Da 5 Bloods is a story about a buried past: It follows Vietnam War veterans Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) as they travel back to their old battleground to find the body of Norman, their fallen squad leader. Also in their sights is the pile of gold bricks interred with him—a CIA cache intended for bribing Vietnamese rebels that Norman’s unit found in the ’70s. The group’s journey is both a decades-later rescue mission and a treasure hunt. The men have an opportunity to heal the wounds of the past but also make millions.
