A retired Green Beret addresses the inaccuracy of an explosion in a Spike Lee war movie. Since his first feature-length movie, She's Gotta Have It, was released in 1986, Lee's movies have been widely watched and celebrated. In the decade that followed his directorial debut, Lee directed many movies, including the critically acclaimed Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X, with both the 1989 and 1992 movies garnering multiple Academy Award nominations.

Lee's prolific directing career continued into the 2000s with notable movies ranging from the Edward Norton and Philip Seymour Hoffman-led 25th Hour to Inside Man, the latter of which was Spike Lee and Denzel Washington's fourth movie together. Lee received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Director in recognition of his 2018 movie, BlacKkKlansman, starring John David Washington and Adam Driver. Since then, Lee has signed a multiyear deal with Netflix.

An Explosion In Spike Lee's Da 5 Bloods Is Not Accurate

The Netflix Movie Stars Delroy Lindo And Chadwick Boseman

David Harris, a retired Green Beret and explosives expert, explains why an explosion is not realistically depicted in Lee's 2020 Netflix war movie Da 5 Bloods' cast includes Delroy Lindo, Chadwick Boseman, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Witlock, Jr.

Da 5 Bloods was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

During a video with Insider, Harris breaks down how an explosion in Da 5 Bloods is inaccurate despite being based on the of a real-life Vietnam War veteran. He explains that the events of this are disputed since they do not align with how the small land mines colloquially known as "toe poppers" work. Harris gives this specific scene an overall low score due to these inaccuracies, although he does give the scene credit for one significant detail that it gets right. Check out his comments below:

Director Spike Lee actually pulled this from a real-life Vietnam veteran that claimed this happened, but the events are disputed. That's not going to work in real life. The toe popper was designed as soon as pressure went on. Let's throw that away. I'm going to give you a rope and expect you to tie it around yourself without shifting any weight in any direction. That's probably unfeasible because you're moving. So once you start moving, weight's going to shift a little bit. It should go off. So the first guy that stepped on the mine, it blew him in half. That's a big explosion. We would think, couldn't have been a toe popper then because the second explosion, shouldn't you get some of that? We didn't pull you that far off. Had to be two different types of mines because it's not enough. A toe popper wasn't designed to blow a dude in half.

I would rate this a four [out of ten] because I don't believe that you could be yanked off the toe popper because it wasn't designed to go off when the weight was removed. The size of that explosion, yeah, that was the right size.

Our Take On David Harris' Comments

The Explosion Inaccuracy Does Not Take Away From The Movie's Many Other Strengths

Despite the real-world inaccuracies of the explosion in a specific scene, this did not stop Da 5 Bloods getting positive reviews. Lee's 2020 movie was largely hailed as a fresh take on the Vietnam War and on war movies in general. Many reviews acknowledged that the movie is not without its flaws, but that Lee's strong direction, the cast's chemistry, and the exploration of difficult themes are enough to overlook any flaws. These strengths ultimately override details that do not entirely work in the Spike Lee movie, such as the inaccuracy in the toe popper explosion.

Source: Insider