- Starring
- Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee
- Writer
- Spike Lee
- Director
- Spike Lee
- Rating
- R (United States)
- Running Time
- 120 minutes
Overall Score
Rating Summary
Spike Lee has done it all – not only in terms of film making, in which he’s explored many formats – but also as an activist, among many other things. With the release of his newest film, Da 5 Bloods, this Friday on Netflix, KLM will be highlighting some of his best films – many of which are extremely relevant in terms of the racism that’s currently plaguing our society.
Do The Right Thing follows Mookie (Lee), a pizza delivery boy, and the various characters of the neighborhood – 3 men sitting in front of a red wall, Da Mayor (Davis), Mother-Sister (Dee), Sal (Aiello), Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito), Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), characters that transcend their few minutes of screen-time and are memorable. While Lee’s writing has always been peculiar, it is on full display here. His style of theatrical set-ups and pay-offs within each conversation, his stilted dialogue all works so perfectly, making each character so specific and idiosyncratic, yet never leaning too far into the quirks of each dialect that it becomes distracting, like in She’s Gotta Have It.
The film truly shines when it comes to the deeply important and still very resonant themes that it imparts. The racial tension, police-brutality, and very concept of “doing the right thing.” are all explored with complexity and a thoughtfulness that is often lacking in other Spike Lee joints. Lee has gone on record as saying that the reason this film works is because it’s an argument with two equally correct sides.
The crux of the film is an argument between Sal, the proprietor of the local pizzeria and Buggin-Out, a frequent customer at Sal’s. When Buggin-Out complains about the lack of African-American people on the “wall of fameâ€, which is populated instead with famous Italian-Americans, Sal’s own heritage – Sal says its his place, he can do what he wants. It all escalates in the end, and we see characters go through the paces of frustration and anger, but in the end it all boils down to these two men. One who has every right to decorate his shop however he likes, and another who has every right to demand inclusivity in a shop that is almost exclusively kept in business by Brooklyn’s black community. The stakes for both characters are clear as are Buggin-Out’s eventual rage and Sal’s anguish near the end of the film – with layered and complex characters like these, it is easy to forget that neither of them are even the protagonist, who has his own dilemmas and flaws, and is in fact a very unlikable character at the end of the day.
Do The Right Thing is honest to a fault, and structured near-perfectly. It’s an important film to look back on and understand in today’s political climate, remaining an integral film in Lee’s illustrious career, and to countless film students’ educations.
*still courtesy of Universal Pictures*
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