Da 5 Bloods

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⭐ 7.5/10

(Originally written by Tim)

I was really anticipating this one, since Spike Lee's movies always seem of the moment, and the messages that are always baked in to his movies around race and injustice are obviously at the forefront right now.

This movie is about 4 Vietnam vets returning to Vietnam to retrieve the body of their fallen captain... as well as the pile of gold they buried him with. I loved the premise, and I also loved the flashbacks to their time in the war, where their captain Chadwick Boseman acts as their spiritual guide, leading in the war and also teaching them about black injustice in America.

Like the couple Spike Lee movies I have seen, this one splices in a bunch of real life footage, this one using wars and protests and speeches. The way these were used were some of the more powerful moments in the film. This, combined with some incredibly tense action sequences, were the parts i enjoyed most.

This Vietnam movie also features people losing their minds as they get deeper in to the jungle. But as the movie went on I found myself kind of losing sight of the purpose, and wishing the characters would just get along better. I guess I don't understand PTSD or addiction or all the other things they were struggling with.

All in all, I enjoyed watching this one, but I don't think it was the "movie we all need right now" that I thought it would be. Still, this is some high quality content that I probably would have ventured to the theaters to see if the times were different, so it was cool to have access to this on Netflix the day it came out.

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