Do The Right Thing

Do the Right Thing (1989)

Runtime: 120 minutes

This is a Spike Lee joint

Starring: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee

From: Universal

This is a movie that should be seen by all audiences and not one in specific, as I explain below: 

I know someone that really doesn't like this movie; no, they aren't a racist. I don't know their exact reasons but I will presume they did not like the tone of the film. After all, it's a movie where most characters are really angry and there's plenty of yelling and characters screaming at each other, and even I don't always like such motion pictures. Here, anger is part of the point so I can't fault the movie for that, even if many of the characters you see are some form of A-hole. I will say... it is not an awful thing that Spike Lee stopped acting in his films, and in 2018, the “mentally handicapped” man named Smiley is incredibly awkward and would be called “a Simple Jack character” today. The film is not subtle and in fact is pretty in your face.

All that said, while this is not the sort of thing I'd throw on often “for fun”, the movie is still very good. It covers an extremely hot summer day (and night) in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. We see this world is full of minorities and yet as he has been there for decades, there is also Sal and his pizza joint... yes, he is Italian. His two sons work there-one of them is extremely prejudiced despite liking some black athletes and entertainers-and Spike Lee is Mookie, who does deliveries on foot. One character starts a conflict with Sal and as everyone's tensions are so high with the oppressive weather, it's a powder keg waiting to explode. When it does... that leads to the most powerful 10 minutes of the movie, where you realize in 2018 that what occurs would be the same as if the movie was made today.

Plenty of characters are seen throughout the 24 hour period and many of them you can decide how “right” or “wrong” they are about topics both big and small. There is also some white police officers and well, you can guess how they are portrayed. To me, many police officers are fine but of course there are some that are racist for whatever reasons and that 10 minute segment would be pretty powerful even if it doesn't mirror some events that have happened in the United States these past few years.

The movie has plenty of familiar faces, some of whom did not become pretty famous until a few years later. To me it's always nice seeing the likes of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Somehow, it seemed appropriate of Samuel L. Jackson to play a DJ named Mister Senor Love Daddy. Overall, the movie is quite bold and is definitely impressive as it was one of Lee's first feature films, and it was filmed so assuredly, and featured memorable music eyes, with Public Enemy's Fight the Power being heard quite a few times throughout. While I imagine there are others who will reject it for reasons varying, the impact it will leave on a lot of people is the same as when it came out almost 30 years ago.