I realized fairly recently that there were a lot of movies that I had not only not seen, but weren't even aware of. There are titles on the AFI list that I couldn't tell you one thing about them. "Do the Right Thing" falls into this category quite soundly, so already I feel like I've expanded my movie watching horizons.
Screening Date: 7/26/2009, 10:00 PM
Run Time: 120 minutes (2 hours)
Director: Spike Lee
Release Date: 1989
Attendance: Weird Dave, Patrick Griffin
I have not seen many Spike Lee movies; in fact, I think the only one I had seen previously was "Malcolm X." After seeing this racially charged, hate-fueled movie, I'm not sure I want to rush out and see more to be honest.
"Do the Right Thing" gives us a picture of the hottest day of summer in a small neighborhood in Brooklyn populated primarily by black people. We see Samuel L. Jackson as the DJ for the local radio, along with Ossie Davis as a drunk bum who calls himself "The Mayor." Spike Lee plays Mookie, the protagonist/antagonist on this hot Brooklyn day, who works at a local pizzeria shop run by an Italian man named Sal (played quite brilliantly by Danny Aiello) and his two sons, Vito (Richard Edson of "Super Mario Brothers" fame) and Pino (John Turturro, who was recently urinated on by a gobot).
Mookie works as a pizza delivery man for the neighborhood, where he knows everyone and everyone knows him. A nice enough neighborhood it seems, with interesting characters going about their business as interesting characters do. The trouble starts early in the day when a young "power to the black man" kind of upstart demands that Sal put up pictures of black celebrities on the wall of his Italian pizzeria. Sal throws him out, but this sparks a heated and continued debate between Sal and his son Pino over their future in the neighborhood. Pino feels like they should move out into the Italian section of Brooklyn and Sal says he's staying right there.
As the day progresses tempers flare all over the place and we get introduced to a pack of more interesting characters, including a deafeningly-loud boombox playing gent named Radio Raheem. The action that played Radio seemed so familiar, but all I coudl think of was Tracy Morgan. After a bit of digging afterward the reason he seemed familiar is because he was the same actor who played Robbie in the Spider-Man films. Man, that bugged me throughout the movie.
We're introduced to a budding romance between The Mayor and the local gossip queen known as Mother Sister. Nothing really goes anywhere with it, which pretty much sums up all of the myriad of plot threads in the movie - they don't really go anywhere. We see a lot of characters doing things that don't get resolved or don't go anywhere, and then WHAM! The gent who was thrown out of Sal's pizzeria comes back with Radio Raheem, sparks an intense racially fueled argument that escalates into a fistfight in the streets, and culminates in Radio's death at the hands of the police.
But the mob of angry residents blame Sal, and it is Mookie who throws the trash can through the glass window. Torches are lit and the place burns to the ground, a business that had been around for many many years as established in earlier scenes. I'm not sure the message here, since the riot was fueled by Radio Raheem's death, but perhaps the undercurrent was the overriding, mounting racial tensions built up over the many many years. Maybe.
Overall I think the movie had some great symbolism, but it just felt like it didn't go anywhere. We see a lot of characters doing things around the neighborhood, some racially charged some not, and then Sal's pizzeria is burnt down in an angry mob. Mookie threw the first stone, so to speak, but he kind of reconciles with Sal the next morning. Lesson? Umm ... I'm not sure. The lesson that stuck with me was that anger can override any other emotion and turn normal, decent folks into monsters. I'm going to stick with that.
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