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Editor’s Note: This review was originally published during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. “Soul Patrol” opens in select theaters at the Cinema Lorber starting Friday, November 6.
The Vietnam War ended more than half a century ago, but the 20-year war remains a conflict that American artists return to, seeking new ways and perspectives to address the many stories of a generation whose lives were irrevocably shaped by the conflict. Recent films have focused on the (often neglected) perspective of the Vietnamese, or — like Spike Lee’s underrated late-career great “Da 5 Bloods” — explored the relatively unexplored service of black men serving in the war.
Soul Patrol, a new documentary from director Jaime Harper, looks at the war’s black soldiers from the perspective of Ed Emanuel, a writer who served as a 17-year-old. In his 2003 memoir of the same name, Emanuel described his brief trip in 1968-1969 with the men he served with in the Black Special Operations Long Range Patrol Special Operations Group I.
“Soul Patrol” finds the men in 2024 for what will be their final reunion. Get Together, Men – Emanuel, Lawton Mack, Thad Givens, Emerson Branch, Jesse Lewis, Willie T. Brown, Willie Merkerson and Norman Reid – sit in a Florida hotel conference room to discuss the memories of their service that have stuck with them for decades, hoping their discussion will help them.
The opening and Emanuel’s narration help set the context for the small portion of the war the film explores. In 1968, as young men left to serve their country, America itself found itself more turbulent than ever; Emanuel was on a plane to Vietnam when the news of Robert Kennedy’s assassination first broke. Protests against the war were growing, and the civil rights movement was also opposing the war; Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech becomes a crucial emotional turning point for Emanuel later on, as he begins to wonder if the trauma he endured while serving in the war was worth it.
Through the film, footage of Emanuel and the reunions between the men guides viewers through their experiences, from the trauma they endured to the discrimination and tokenization they faced as black soldiers fighting for America. One scene depicts the men’s conflicted feelings around their unit’s nickname, a racist name that is both endearing and patronizing. Others focus on the formative experiences Emmanuel undergoes throughout the war, including a hazy night in Bangkok that proves formative both sexually and emotionally.
Harper — whose feature debut As We Speak also played at Sundance — has a loud, uncompromisingly blunt style, and the film most clearly errs when its directorial choices are heavy handed. The film awkwardly uses actor-led shots that are too slick and generic to fit seamlessly into the Super 8 footage and cast interviews that make up the bulk of the story. This is especially true of the first visual metaphor, in which an old veteran is haunted by a vision of his past that is more exaggerated and obvious than enlightening. Other formal choices seem designed to provoke emotional responses the material could easily do on its own, especially the loud, string-heavy score, which is too generic for the material.
It’s when the film gets out of its way and allows the male experience to do what Spirit Patrol really shines. The Super 8 footage collected from their tour in Vietnam, much of it shot by the men themselves, is visually arresting and intimate, and Harper often uses quick cuts and edits of the film on location and B-roll of period newsreels and commercials to depict the world they once lived in. The reunion scenes are simply but masterfully shot in black and white, including revealing conversations between the men’s wives and partners about their lives, gently expanding the film’s portraiture.
“Soul Patrol” brilliantly never tries to sum up the whole experience of what Vietnam was, but simply tries to sum up what it was for these people. In the film’s final stretch, it focuses on the difficult experiences of men returning home from war, with an honesty and vulnerability that’s hard not to tear up. As one Soul Patrol member eloquently reflects at the end of the film, “We need to tell stories to look at where we’ve been, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going. You have to know your beginning before you can figure out your end.”
Class: B
“Soul Patrol” premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Kino Lorber opens the film in select theaters on Friday, November 6.
