#TBT | “Do the Right Thing” (1989) Movie Review By ROGER EBERT | #doyosexi | #quotes #film #hollywood

BY ROGER EBERT / June 30, 1989

Spike Lee‘s “Do the Right Thing” is the most controversial film of the year, and it only opens today. Thousands of people already have seen it at preview screenings, and everywhere I go, people are discussing it. Some of them are bothered by it; they think it will cause trouble. Others feel the message is confused. Some find it too militant, others find it the work of a middle-class director who is trying to play street-smart. All of those reactions, I think, simply are different ways of avoiding the central fact of this film, which is that it comes closer to reflecting the current state of race relations in America than any other movie of our time.

Of course it is confused. Of course it wavers between middle-class values and street values. Of course it is not sure whether it believes in liberal pieties or militancy. Of course some of the characters are sympathetic and others are hateful. And of course some of the likable characters do bad things. Isn’t that the way it is in America today? Anyone who walks into this film expecting answers is a dreamer or a fool. But anyone who leaves the movie with more intolerance than they walked in with wasn’t paying attention.

The movie takes place during one long, hot day in the Bedford-Stuyevesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. But this is not the typical urban cityscape we’ve seen in countless action movies about violence and guns and drugs. People live here. It’s a neighborhood like those city neighborhoods in the urban movies of the Depression: People know one another and accept one another, and although there are problems, there also is a sense of community. (MORE)

Cast & Credits
Sal: Danny Aiello
Da Mayor: Ossie Davis
Mother Sister: Ruby Dee
Vito: Richard Edson
Buggin Out: Giancarlo Esposito
Mookie: Spike Lee
Radio Raheem: Bill Nunn
Pino: John Turturro
ML: Paul Benjamin
Coconut Sid: Frankie Faison

Universal. Written And Directed By Spike Lee. Photography By Ernest Dickerson. Edited By Barry Alexander Brown. Music By Bill Lee. Running Time: 120 Minutes. Classified R.

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