After the Oscar-winning success of BlacKkKlansman, what filmmaker Spike Lee opted to follow it up with always always going to be inherently fascinating. After all, that movie had won Lee his first Academy Award. Would that move him in a more mainstream direction? If so, would any of his creative forces be blunted? Well, if any of that worried you, fear not. Da 5 Bloods, hitting Netflix on Friday, is certainly poised to be one of his most widely seen efforts, but it retains everything that makes him such a special and unique storyteller. Crafting an essential bit of cinema for our times, this is something that absolutely needs to be seen. The film is a drama, mixing in war elements. A quartet of African American Army veterans in Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Eddie (Norm Lewis), and Melvin (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.) have returned to Vietnamese soil, decades after the war. During the Vietnam War, they lost their Squad Leader, Norman (Chadwick Boseman), during a bloody battle. Back in country, they plan to search for his remains and bring him home for a proper burial. However, the four also have another plan, which is to recover literal buried treasure. You see, where the body was left, so too was a ton of gold. Knowing the plan, the group is also joined by Paul’s son Davis (Jonathan Majors), who worries that his father’s PTSD is getting out of control. In the jungle, the group may find what their looking for, but various dangers await them, as well as a renewed reckoning with the passives immoralities that surrounded the Vietnam War, and in particular those of the African America experience. Lee directs here, in addition to penning the screenplay with Danny Bilson, Paul De Meo, and Kevin Willmott. Supporting players include Paul Walter Hauser, Van Veronica Ngo, Jasper Pääkkönen, Jean Reno, Mélanie Thierry, and more. Terence Blanchard again serves as Lee’s composer, while the cinematography is by Newton Thomas Sigel. Spike Lee is again at the height of his powers here, once again expertly mixing anger and entertainment. His trademark righteous indignation is fully on display, again buoyed by unfortunate real life events. Much like in BlacKkKlansman, recent historical events are shown for context, which is incredibly effective. Undeniably a Lee picture, this is also, as he said last year, his “David Lean epic,” which is true, in terms of length […]