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Spike Lee's incendiary look at race relations in America, circa 1989, is so colorful and exuberant for its first three-quarters that you can almost forget the terrible confrontation that the movie inexorably builds toward.
Do the Right Thing is a joyful, tumultuous masterpiece--maybe the best film ever made about race in America, revealing racial prejudices and stereotypes in all their guises and demonstrating how a deadly riot can erupt out of a series of small misunderstandings. Set on one block in Bedford-Stuyvesant on the hottest day of the summer, the movie shows the whole spectrum of life in this neighborhood and then leaves it up to us to decide if, in the end, anybody actually does the "right thing." Featuring Danny Aiello as Sal, the pizza parlor owner; Lee himself as Mookie, the lazy pizza-delivery guy; John Turturro and Richard Edson as Sal's sons; Lee's sister Joie as Mookie's sister Jade; Rosie Perez as Mookie's girlfriend Tina; Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee as the block elders, Da Mayor and Mother Sister; Giancarlo Esposito as Mookie's hot-headed friend Buggin' Out; Bill Nunn as the boom-box toting Radio Raheem; and Samuel L. Jackson as deejay Mister Señor Love Daddy. A rich and nuanced film to watch, treasure, and learn from--over and over again.
--Jim Emerson
DVD features
The Criterion Collection and Spike Lee have delivered an abundance of treasures in this new edition of
Do the Right Thing. Addressing the viewer in video commentary specially filmed for this two-disc set, Lee warmly remembers the creative process and extraneous hoopla of his first masterpiece. Cameras were rolling on the day of the first read-through, capturing a fascinating glimpse of veteran actors and soon-to-be-knowns beginning to understand how special the film was going to be. Among other treats there's an illuminating one-hour making-of documentary; an interview with editor Barry Brown; and the video of Public Enemy's most lasting anthem, "Fight the Power." But Lee saves the best for the very end, delivering a "last word" in which he deliciously lambastes critics (by name!) who misguidedly predicted racial unrest upon the film's theatrical release.
--Ryan Boudinot
