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DA 5 BLOODS

"Black Lives Matter Meets Jesus and the Vietnam War"

NoneLightModerateHeavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

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What You Need To Know:

DA 5 BLOODS is a strange hybrid directed by Spike Lee. It opens with newsreel footage from the 1960s and 70s featuring famous black people denouncing racism in America. Cut to present day Vietnam. Four black Vietnam vets meet in a hotel. They plan to return to the jungles to recover the body of their dead squad leader and millions of dollars in gold bars from a crashed CIA plane. They buried the gold to retrieve them later, but the war suddenly ended.

DA 5 BLOODS is a strange hybrid. It’s a war movie, a heist thriller, a political drama, and sometimes a documentary that mentions little bits of Black History, from Director Sike Lee’s leftist viewpoint. This mixture doesn’t always work, but the movie has its compelling, suspenseful and even touching moments. Sadly, the movie has a strong Romantic, Anti-American, politically correct, leftist worldview with extreme violence and nearly constant foul language. This negative content in DA 5 BLOODS is mitigated, however, by a clear presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and elements of repentance, forgiveness, love, and reconciliation.

Content:

(RoRo, APAP, PCPC, CoCo, RHRH, CC, B, P, LLL, VVV, S, NNN, AA, DD, MM):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
Strong Romantic, Anti-American, politically correct, leftist worldview with revisionist left-wing history, strong lawless behavior, the Marxist/Racist Black Lives Matter outlet in New York is given some stolen money, and the people crowded in the room chant, “Black Lives Matter,” and there are some negative politically correct memes against President Trump (the most disturbed veteran in the movie just happens to be a vocal Trump supporter), mitigated by a clear presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, overt references to Jesus and God, a clear scene of repentance and forgiveness, a reference to Jesus Christ’s command to love one another, a man says, “I forgive you. God is love. Love is God,” another man tells someone, “Godspeed,” and some moral elements, including references to love, a young man protects some innocent people, but he has to fool a troubled man to do it, and a troubled father reconciles with his son, plus patriotic images of the Vietnam War Memorial for veterans are shown

Foul Language:
At least 252 obscenities (including many “f” words), 27 strong profanities (24 GDs and three borderline Jesus profanities), six light profanities, and man grabs some toilet paper to relieve himself in the jungle but finds a gold bar

Violence:
Extreme, very strong and strong violence includes four gun battles (two occur during a war), some spraying blood when people get shot, some people get shot point blank, men shoot a captured man to pieces with their guns, man sweeps his machine gun around but accidentally kills a friendly soldier as well as an enemy soldier, people tied up, mine explodes, and victim’s body is torn in half and lives a few seconds before he dies, man steps on another mine, prisoners are tied up, newsreel footage of street riots

Sex:
No sex scenes, but man meets his illegitimate daughter when he sees her mother again 46 years later, one or two light sexual comments, and a couple references to someone allegedly being a prostitution

Nudity:
Newsreel war footage of a totally nude girl running down a rural road with some other people, brief image of rear female nudity, and brief upper male nudity

Alcohol Use:
Alcohol use and some drunkenness

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
Smoking and man takes prescribed oxycontin for his pain, but it’s suggested he’s become addicted, and some of the pills are given to a man who’s been painfully shot; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:
Stealing but not rebuked, betrayal, lying, man has hidden a secret for 46 years, and a troubled father is estranged from his son, but there’s reconciliation toward the end, and the man repents and redeems himself in a manner of speaking and then presents the Gospel to a small group of evil men.

More Detail:

DA 5 BLOODS is a strange but compelling and sometimes touching hybrid thriller, created by Spike Lee, about a group of black Vietnam War vets who go to present day Vietnam to recover the body of their war buddy and millions of dollars in gold bars. The themes in DA 5 BLOODS are as hybrid as the story, with ideas ranging from the oppression of black people in America to PTSD, the power of greed and the need for repentance and forgiveness. These themes are mixed with extreme violence, nearly constant foul language, strong Anti-American, politically correct content, and an overt reference to the Gospel, among other content.

The movie opens with newsreel footage from the 1960s and 1970s, including footage of black soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War. Also included in the footage are quotes condemning racism in America from Black Muslim Malcolm X, boxer Muhammed Ali (also a Black Muslim), Black Panther Party founder Bobby Seale, and communist radical Angela Davis. A photo of five black soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam ends the sequence.

Cut to present day Vietnam, in a hotel lobby in Ho Chi Minh City. Four of the five soldiers, now pushing 65, meet up after not seeing one another for many years. A mudslide has uncovered the area where they buried their squad leader, Norman, who died during a mission. They hope the mudslide has also uncovered the place where they buried millions of dollars in gold bars that the CIA had intended to pay local villagers for their help in fighting the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong, the communist guerrilla fighters and terrorists employed by North Vietnam’s communist leaders of North Vietnam. Led by Norman, the men had agreed to tell their superiors that communist soldiers had gotten to the gold before they got to the shipment, which was on a crashed transport plane. However, enemy soldiers engaged the men in a gunfight, during which Norman was shot dead. After he died, the men promised each other to return to Norman’s body and the buried treasure later, but then American troops were pulled out of Vietnam.

Now, the men intend to travel into the jungle, retrieve the gold and identify Norman’s body for an American team recovering bodies from the war. One of them has contacted an old girlfriend, who’s put the men in touch with a shady Frenchman who can exchange the gold for cash money.

Of course, things don’t go according to plan. The son of one of the men shows up and blackmails his father to go on the trip. Eventually, the four ex-soldiers and the son run into a group of armed men led by the revenge-seeking son of a killed Viet Cong soldier who plans on killing them and taking the gold.

DA 5 BLOODS is a strange hybrid. It’s a war movie. It’s a heist thriller. It’s a political drama. And, sometimes it’s a documentary that mentions little bits of Black History, from Director Sike Lee’s leftist viewpoint. This mixture doesn’t always work, partly because it includes flashbacks to the five men’s relationship with their mentor and squad leader, Norman, as well as a couple scenes where one of the men imagines himself talking to his dead war buddy. The movie’s little leftist documentary asides don’t help. They were obviously tacked on to the original script. Despite this, DA 5 BLOODS holds the viewer’s interest. It has its compelling, suspenseful and even touching moments. However, it does run a little long, about two and one-half hours.

The movie’s themes are as hybrid as the story. Among the topics depicted are the oppression of black people in America, the effects of PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome on American war veterans, the power of greed, the nature of revenge, and the need for repentance and forgiveness. Into these themes, Director Spike Lee, who also co-wrote the final script, inserts a Romantic, Anti-American, politically correct worldview, including references to the violent Marxist/Racist terror group Black Lives Matter. All the five men’s problems are laid at the foot of white, capitalist American culture and society. Finally, the movie falsely claims that black soldiers were used as cannon fodder by white officers and were killed at a much higher rate than white soldiers, but figures from the Department of Defense and elsewhere show this isn’t true (see David Horowitz, “The Truth – The Number of Black US Soldiers Killed in Vietnam,” FrontPage Magazine, Nov. 26, 2001, https://rense.com/general17/thetruththenumber.htm).

Despite the movie’s leftist politics, DA 5 BLOODS has some positive Christian content. For example, although the men’s mentor and squad leader, Norman, seems to teach his men Marxist theories about racial oppression in America, he also talks with them about God and Jesus. Tellingly, however, Norman also gives the men a reductive economic theory of war, just like any other useful Marxist stooge. Later in the movie, Paul, the most disturbed member of “Da 5 Bloods,” who also just happens to be a hateful Trump supporter, has a mental breakdown because of a terrible secret that’s haunted him since the Vietnam War. During this breakdown, he imagines he’s talking to Norman, who forgives him for his transgression. After this scene, Paul sings a hymn to the armed group led by the son of the dead Viet Cong soldier, who have captured him, “God is my friend. Jesus is my friend. He made this world for us to live in and gave us everything. All he asks of us is we give each other love. Jesus loves us, and He’ll forgive us all our sins.”

Thus, at one point, DA 5 BLOODS delivers a clear presentation of the Gospel. It also promotes repentance, forgiveness and love, including a man saying, “God is love. Love is God.” However, at the same time, the movie expresses hate for America. For instance, in that same scene mentioned above, Paul tells his captors that he and his buddies fought in an “immoral” war for “rights they didn’t have.” The whole movie stresses this Neo-Marxist lie, that blacks in America have never really had any rights in the United States. Even the flashbacks showing the four men’s interaction with their squad leaders stresses this lie, several years after the United States Congress passed the 1965 Civil Rights Act, several years after black actor Sidney Poitier won the Oscar for LILIES OF THE FIELD and more than 100 years after slavery was banned in America. Blacks always had at least some rights in the United States, even under slavery and terrible segregation laws. During the 1960s, segregation laws were banned and blacks gained full rights under the Civil Rights Act. During all of that history, more and more blacks exercised their rights to worship as they see fit, to speak freely, to own guns, to travel across state lines, and to achieve the American Dream. What Marxists and leftists like Spike Lee and the leaders of the Marxist terror group “Black Lives Matter” don’t want to tell you is that the deprivation of some rights in some places doesn’t mean that a person has no rights at all anywhere.

To Spike’s credit, however, DA 5 BLOODS does mention the boat people who tried to escape tyrannical Communist Vietnam in the 1970s. It also mentions that communists in Cambodia murdered more than a million people. What the movie doesn’t do, though, is link this deadly communist oppression to the withdrawal of American troops from Southeast Asia and the American government’s refusal to give any more money to freedom fighters in Southeast Asia trying to stop these communist tyrants and murderers.

DA 5 BLOODS also contains extreme violence, including bloody point blank shootings, and nearly constant foul language.

DA 5 BLOODS is known as the last movie filmed by late actor Chadwick Boseman, who died at age 43 of colon cancer. Boseman does a great job, as does veteran actor Delroy Lindo, who delivers a masterful performance as the troubled Paul.

Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.


Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.

What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.

You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.

Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.


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