With “Da 5 Bloods,” Spike Lee follows his long overdue Oscar win for “BlacKkKlansman” by revealing a side of the Vietnam story that’s seldom told.
Through the Trojan horse of a treasure-hunt adventure movie, the director explores the mindset of Black soldiers who fought for their country at a time when African Americans were being oppressed at home.
to claim the loot they were ordered to retrieve decades earlier, but stashed for themselves instead.
The result is overlong and erratic, but also frequently surprising for a contemporary riff on the classic greed-doesn’t-pay parable “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”Entertainment journalists have taken to describing “Da 5 Bloods” as “timely” because its release coincides with the nationwide protests that spontaneously arose following the murder of George Floyd.
That is true, but let’s be clear: Lee has always been ahead-of-his-timely.
He reminded us of that a week ago
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