Spike Lee's celebrated magnum opus, Do the Right Thing, is too interesting and too thought-provoking to be bad. It's also too muddled, confused, and hateful to be worthy of my praise.
The story of boiling racial tension on a hot summer day in New York is exceptional in the way it visualizes how a normal day can turn explosive when hidden prejudices bubble to the surface, and a perfect storm of grievances click in at once. The structure, the writing, the deft direction (for most of the runtime) is as expertly done as you've heard. So much so that I can clearly see how this film can be considered one of the very best of the 1980s. A film so provocative and unique (in its visual style and hip-hop rhythm) can't be dismissed entirely. Yet, I can't bring myself to champion Do the Right Thing.
It's a movie that forces you to chew on its ideas. However, what to make of the movie when those ideas are kind of stupid? First, let's clear up what Do the Right Thing is trying to say about race relations. The plot goes: several ethnic groups peacefully cohabitate a lower-class New York neighborhood until a small perceived grievance (No black people's pictures hanging on the wall of the Italian Pizzeria) grows and grows into an eventual race riot, perpetrated by the film's protagonist (Spike Lee himself as Mookie). Then, in a final title card, Spike Lee shows quotes from both Martin Luthor King Jr. and Malcom X. Peace vs righteous violence. The last image is meant, I believe, to force us to confront whether Mookie did... the Right Thing. Here is where my problems with Do the Right Thing begin. The way Spike Lee sets up this conflict, he makes it too clear that, no, Mookie did NOT do the right thing by throwing a trash can through the window of an innocent pizza shop owner. His Italian characters, the supposed instigators, are innocent of everything but being fed up with black people in general because they are fed up with the individual black people harassing them at work. But Sal, played by Danny Aiello in the movie's best performance, is actually a friend to the community, a helper, a mentor. And yet, we're supposed the question whether burning his shop down was okay by the end? The black characters, however, are just kind of bums overall; making demands about how Sal decorates his shop, sitting at home ignoring a girlfriend while on the clock at work. and getting violent once their precious boombox is destroyed. There is nothing wrong with these characterizations, but they run contrary to the message we are supposed to get in the final 15 minutes.
Once the tensions actually do explode, I find it difficult to believe that anyone, black, white, or other, can be on the side of Mookie and his pals. They are portrayed so unsympathetically that it completely muddles Lee's own message. If not for the sudden deus ex machina death of Radio Raheem at the hands of police, there would not be a single counterpoint to balance the obvious moral high ground of Sal. So, ultimately, the movie doesn't work. Mookie was in the wrong. I don't feel bad for him and I don't feel bad for the other rioters. Spike Lee fails. The message does not register.
Because, you see, the whole argument, if you can call a shrugging, "I guess we're all just hateful and will always be hateful" an argument, only works if we believe Malcolm X had a point; if we question whether Mookie was justified in starting a riot. If that were the case, we would look at that final title card and question whether we should stand stoically against hatred or fight back. But Mookie is an chump. He's a lazy bum who destroys the livelihood of his community's strongest father figure. Spike, what on earth were you thinking with this character? Those last 15 minutes don't make me question whether Malcolm X was right, they confirmed to me that he was wrong.
56/100
The story of boiling racial tension on a hot summer day in New York is exceptional in the way it visualizes how a normal day can turn explosive when hidden prejudices bubble to the surface, and a perfect storm of grievances click in at once. The structure, the writing, the deft direction (for most of the runtime) is as expertly done as you've heard. So much so that I can clearly see how this film can be considered one of the very best of the 1980s. A film so provocative and unique (in its visual style and hip-hop rhythm) can't be dismissed entirely. Yet, I can't bring myself to champion Do the Right Thing.
It's a movie that forces you to chew on its ideas. However, what to make of the movie when those ideas are kind of stupid? First, let's clear up what Do the Right Thing is trying to say about race relations. The plot goes: several ethnic groups peacefully cohabitate a lower-class New York neighborhood until a small perceived grievance (No black people's pictures hanging on the wall of the Italian Pizzeria) grows and grows into an eventual race riot, perpetrated by the film's protagonist (Spike Lee himself as Mookie). Then, in a final title card, Spike Lee shows quotes from both Martin Luthor King Jr. and Malcom X. Peace vs righteous violence. The last image is meant, I believe, to force us to confront whether Mookie did... the Right Thing. Here is where my problems with Do the Right Thing begin. The way Spike Lee sets up this conflict, he makes it too clear that, no, Mookie did NOT do the right thing by throwing a trash can through the window of an innocent pizza shop owner. His Italian characters, the supposed instigators, are innocent of everything but being fed up with black people in general because they are fed up with the individual black people harassing them at work. But Sal, played by Danny Aiello in the movie's best performance, is actually a friend to the community, a helper, a mentor. And yet, we're supposed the question whether burning his shop down was okay by the end? The black characters, however, are just kind of bums overall; making demands about how Sal decorates his shop, sitting at home ignoring a girlfriend while on the clock at work. and getting violent once their precious boombox is destroyed. There is nothing wrong with these characterizations, but they run contrary to the message we are supposed to get in the final 15 minutes.
Once the tensions actually do explode, I find it difficult to believe that anyone, black, white, or other, can be on the side of Mookie and his pals. They are portrayed so unsympathetically that it completely muddles Lee's own message. If not for the sudden deus ex machina death of Radio Raheem at the hands of police, there would not be a single counterpoint to balance the obvious moral high ground of Sal. So, ultimately, the movie doesn't work. Mookie was in the wrong. I don't feel bad for him and I don't feel bad for the other rioters. Spike Lee fails. The message does not register.
Because, you see, the whole argument, if you can call a shrugging, "I guess we're all just hateful and will always be hateful" an argument, only works if we believe Malcolm X had a point; if we question whether Mookie was justified in starting a riot. If that were the case, we would look at that final title card and question whether we should stand stoically against hatred or fight back. But Mookie is an chump. He's a lazy bum who destroys the livelihood of his community's strongest father figure. Spike, what on earth were you thinking with this character? Those last 15 minutes don't make me question whether Malcolm X was right, they confirmed to me that he was wrong.
56/100