Stars: Danny Aiello, Giancarlo Esposito, Spike Lee, Joie Lee, Rosie Perez

Director: Spike Lee

Summary: A local black community is unhappy that their community is effectively being run by whites. As the heat rises on a hot summer's day in Brooklyn, so the racial tension, which has so far lay dormant under the surface, begins to rise.

Spike Lee's racial and political filmmaking bent is given the full treatment with this simmering expose of racial tensions in a New York City neighbourhood one scorching summer day. The film, written by Lee (and nominated for an Oscar), follows a group of racially diverse inhabitants from Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood as they spend their day trying to avoid the oppressive heat. These include African American pizza deliveryman Mookie (Lee), the racially sensitive Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito), and the silent, boom-box-blasting Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn). Also thrown into the mix are Sal (an Oscar-nominated Danny Aiello), the Italian-American proprietor of Sal's Pizzeria, as well as his two sons, Pino (John Turturro) and Vito (Richard Edson), who hold completely opposing attitudes when it comes to race. After Buggin' Out tries to organise a boycott of Sal's because of the lack of racial diversity on his shop's Wall of Fame, the tensions explode in an act of senseless violence. Lee's film is an electric work of political entertainment that confronts sensitive racial issues head-on. He deftly blends humour and drama as well as using specific music to further amplify his theme (Public Enemy's song 'Fight the Power' actually becomes the film's main catalyst for action). Boldly closing the film with opposing quotes from Malcolm X and Martin Luther King on the nature of race relations, Lee leaves it up to the viewer to decide if Mookie's actions were the correct ones. Aiello and Esposito are standouts in an all-star cast that includes Lee himself, his sister Joie, 'discovery' Rosie Perez, and the married team of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Always one to spark controversy, Lee's summer drama finds the filmmaker at the peak of his craft.

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Spike Lee's incendiary look at race relations in America, circa 1989, is so colourful and exuberant for its first three-quarters that you can almost forget the terrible confrontation that the movie inexorably builds toward. Do the Right Thingis 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 neighbourhood 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 parlour 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 DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy. This is a rich and nuanced film to watch, treasure and learn from--over and over again. --Jim Emerson

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Year:	1989
Release Date:	July 6, 2009
Runtime:	114 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	9035649
Keywords:	Right, Comedy, General, Thing, Drama, Rescheduled
Genre:	Drama