‘Soul Patrol’ review: Powerful portrait of the first Black special operations unit in Vietnam

Dir: J. M. Harper. US. 2026. 100mins

Battles of many types form the basis of J. M. Harper’s absorbing and eye-opening, if somewhat dense, documentary, which asks us to walk in the military boots of the first Black special operations team in the Vietnam War. Soul Patrol weaves together the battles fought, or avoided, on the ground with the fight for African American rights back in the US and the emotional conflict the men have experienced thanks to the lingering trauma of combat.

Moving first-person testimony about the long shadow of conflict

Based on the book by Army veteran and author Ed Emanuel, it premieres in the US Documentary Competition at Sundance, as did Harper’s debut As We Speak in 2024. Its polished and thorough presentation makes further festival play and domestic distribution likely. Although the Vietnam War and US civil rights history will hold more resonance for American audiences, the moving first-person testimony about the long shadow of conflict strikes a universal note that may interest specialist distributors elsewhere.

Emanuel was part of Company F, 51st Infantry (Long Range Patrol), one of many ‘LURPS’: six-man reconnaissance teams that were sent on dangerous missions deep behind enemy lines. ‘Men’ is something of a misnomer, as most of them were just teenagers when they signed up. Thad Givens was only 17, for example, and Lawton Mackey Jr was also underage, forging his mother’s signature on army documents. Those who were of legal age were mostly still in their teens. When Emanuel caught his flight to the war zone, it was the first time he had been on a plane.

As he and the other men from their unit come together, along with their families, for a reunion 57 years after they signed up as soldiers in 1968, they recall how many of them did not talk about their Vietnam experiences for years. Now, they open up, with Harper’s film moving back and forth between the men sharing their memories, re-enactments of their experiences in Vietnam, Super-8 footage shot by the soldiers themselves and news archive covering key events, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy, and the unrest that ensued on the home front.

What emerges is an immersive picture not just about their experiences when encountering Vietnamese fighters, but of the toll that killing so many people can bring. The hostile nature of their white brothers in arms is also apparent, whether in the ‘dog whistle’ nature of branding them the ‘Soul Patrol’ or more general racist attitudes. “The white soldiers don’t like you any more than the enemies,” recollects one veteran. Journalist Jesse Lewis also talks about the erasure of Black soldiers from newspaper articles at the time, despite the high percentage of Black men in the armed forces compared to the population.

The sheer amount of material means Harper – who also works as an editor – risks overload in places but, for the most part, the editing team strikes a careful balance. While it’s welcome that he broadens out Soul Patrol to include the men’s wives talking about the lifelong repercussions of war, it’s a shame there isn’t more of it. Elsewhere, some of the directorial choices feel flashy, such as the move between colour and black-and-white film stock as the men talk to one another and to camera, more of a twitchy distraction than an enhancement of what is being said.

Framing segments with Emanuel encountering the Vietnam-era versions of his patrol in a supermarket are also an unnecessary on-the-nose embellishment given how visceral and affecting the men’s first-person testimonies are on their own.