Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’ Ends With a Powerful Tribute to Black Lives Matter

To say Spike Lee‘s new Netflix movie Da 5 Bloods is timely would be a colossal understatement. The humanity of African American men and the long history of racism in the United States is always timely, of course, but released in the midst of protests against police brutality—sparked by the killing of 46-year-old black man George Floyd—a war movie that unpacks the trauma of black men who were asked to die for their country feels especially profound. And, in the last 15 minutes of the film, Lee even explicitly calls out the organization that has helped mobilize and empower the George Floyd protests: Black Lives Matter.

Da 5 Bloods blends a lot of genres; war movies, treasure hunt movies, and family dramas, to name a few. The film follows four Vietnam veterans (played by Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr.) who return to the country where they fought to retrieve their fallen comrade (Chadwick Boseman), as well as the bars of gold he’d buried in the woods many years prior. I won’t spoil the movie—it’s well worth your time—but, at the end of the film, one of those shares of gold, valued at $2 million, is donated to the modern-day Black Lives Matter movement.

It’s a short scene that lasts less than a minute. A man in a Black Lives Matter sweatshirt announces the donation to a crowd of organizers, who cheer and chant “Black lives matter.” Their voices are strong, powerful, with a hint of anger at what has been lost; but more than that, a fierce determination to prevent losses in the future. Lee pairs that audio with split-second portraits of organizers in boxes that seem to multiply on the screen exponentially, speaking to the way the movement has grown, and grown, and grown. It’s a visual that’s both uplifting and deeply sad. The movement is powerful and making change, but it has also been forced to expand as more black women and men continue to be killed by police.

The chairman of the New York chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement, Hank Newsome, was on set while Da 5 Bloods filmed in Thailand. In an interview for Da 5 Bloods press notes, Newsome said of Lee, “The man is hot off an Oscar, and Black Lives Matter is referenced in his next major picture project, starring phenomenal actors — people who I watched growing up? It’s crazy. Spike Lee and 40 Acres and a Mule played a part in inspiring me and giving me tools to go out there and do this work.”

Though only a short scene, Lee manages to convey the pain, power, and ever-growing numbers of this movement. In a just country, Black Lives Matter would never have to exist, but what Lee spends two hours and 35 minutes showing us is that America has been anything but just. If you’d like to follow in the footsteps of Eddie in Da 5 Bloods, you can donate to Black Lives Matter here.

Watch Da 5 Bloods on Netflix