![]() The stashed gold - the story's primary MacGuffin - represents the reparations Black Americans were never paid for the sins of slavery and dehumanization. It becomes telling who wants to spend the gold for the community and who wants to keep it for themselves. Another is a hardcore conservative, who lets racial epithets leak from his mouth and subscribes to American exceptionalism. One, you’ll learn, is a benefactor for Black Lives Matter. The four surviving Bloods, who revere their late leader like he was both Malcolm and Martin in a single entity, represent the spectrum of ways Black Americans have never ceased to wrestle with living for and dying for a racist Western power. Like Blackkklansman before it, Lee has once again crafted a movie that is timeless in its content yet urgent in its message. Lee doesn't hold back on the resentment Black Americans had towards Vietnam after they were drafted into yet another war for a country that never cared for them and continues not to. But the single commonality throughout is its exploration of Black trauma. It's a soaring war drama one minute and a pulpy treasure hunt heist the next. ![]() Over two hours, Da 5 Bloods plays as a mosaic of moods and genres. 'Da 5 Bloods', Spike Lee's newest movie, is streaming now on Netflix. It's almost like Spike Lee made a war movie 30 years ago and kept it under his bed until now before shooting a whole new film around it. In flashbacks to '67, Spike Lee squishes his widescreen frame to a letterbox 4:3 image that's dirtier, noisier, and more raw than the high-definition clarity of 2020 Hanoi. ![]() Oh so much Marvin Gaye and Richard Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" score the film's most poignant moments. While a heist movie through and through, Spike Lee indulges in the aesthetics of classic Vietnam War movies, from Platoon to Apocalypse Now (the latter gets a big shout-out in a nightclub scene). But problems arise in the jungle that force these men to relive their worst nightmares and survive new ones. The four, plus one of their sons - David (Jonathan Majors) - seek to retrieve the remains of their fallen leader, Norman (Chadwick Boseman), along with a stash of gold worth millions. In Da 5 Bloods, streaming now on Netflix, four Black Vietnam veterans reunite in modern-day Hanoi, a bustling city with skyscrapers, pristine hotels, and well-lit McDonald's lining its streets. With a cast of characters who reflect the many ways war haunts soldiers lucky enough to survive, Da 5 Bloods is an arresting, beautiful movie about Black brotherhood, Black trauma, and how the cost of reparations for Black Americans can never be enough. ![]() Armed with his usual auteur arsenal - Lee likes to have his characters speak to the camera, he likes them debating popular culture, and he likes archival footage to tell a new story - the director puts his stamp on the heist film genre, one that comes dressed up as an epic war drama set long after the war was lost. The "American War" changed these men forever, arguably for the worse, and time has not separated them from who they were forced to become.ĭa 5 Bloods is Spike Lee's newest and possibly greatest movie. These actors playing their younger selves in a critique Lee makes about America's unending wars. ![]() You don't see them de-aged, caked under video game CGI. Though mostly set in the modern day, whenever Da 5 Bloods flashes back 50 years to the battlefields of Vietnam, you don't see strapping young actors replace veteran actors Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr., all of whom are in their 60s. That's the critical choice Spike Lee makes in his latest film, Da 5 Bloods. ![]()
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