If you have to stream one Netflix movie this 4th of July, watch this one | Digital Trends

Da 5 Bloods is political, but not in the polemical way you might expect. Instead, the movie’s central character is a Black Trump supporter who spends much of the movie sporting a MAGA hat. Writer and director Spike Lee seems to understand the mounting frustration this man has experienced throughout his life, and why he wants to channel that frustration into tearing everything down.

Delroy Lindo’s central performance helps immensely, as does the honest reckoning the movie attempts with the gruesome way Black men were often used as recently as the Vietnam War.

In addition to being thoughtful about current events, Da 5 Bloods is also a wickedly entertaining movie about four older men who are trying to recapture the complicated feelings they have about their time in the service. The movie’s brilliance comes in part from the way it refuses to reduce the experience these men had to any one thing.

Vietnam could be horrible and beautiful, and that experience is reflected in each of our central characters. The movie is ultimately about reckoning with a past that is often far less idyllic than we might want it to be, even as we continue to make mistakes well into the present. It’s also one of Lee’s funniest movies.

On top of its smart writing, Da 5 Bloods is also one of the most strikingly beautiful movies that Lee has ever made. Featuring on-location settings in Vietnam, plenty of references to other great Vietnam movies, and beautiful natural cinematography, the movie rarely misses a beat.

It also makes no effort to deploy de-aging technology for its flashback sequences, instead simply allowing the old men at the movie’s center to play younger versions of themselves. It’s a small choice, but one that works in the movie’s favor.