Do the Right Thing (1989)

Despite 30 years hav­ing passed since the film’s explo­sion onto the nation­al stage (com­plete with pan­ic from some white crit­ics that it would cause riots in the streets), there’s no deny­ing the stay­ing pow­er of Do the Right Thing. Just as it was in 1989, Spike Lee’s fourth fea­ture is painful­ly rel­e­vant to the cur­rent cul­tur­al moment; filled with dis­cus­sions of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion, police bru­tal­i­ty, the denial of Black people’s right to protest, the fact that so many of our heroes are made invisible.

It opens with a burst of ener­gy, Rosie Perez mak­ing an incred­i­ble first impres­sion as she furi­ous­ly dances and box­es to the sound of Pub­lic Enemy’s anthem ​‘Fight The Pow­er’, a song that appears through­out the film. The cry of ​‘wake up!’ almost direct­ly car­ries over from Lawrence Fish­burne in the final moments of Lee’s pre­vi­ous film, School Daze, to Samuel L Jackson’s fast-talk­ing radio jock­ey Mr Señor Lovedad­dy, act­ing as the voice of rea­son for the neigh­bour­hood from his seclud­ed studio.

Tak­ing place over the course of a sin­gle day in Bed-Stuy dur­ing an uncom­fort­ably hot sum­mer, the film stitch­es inci­den­tal scenes togeth­er as it explores the neigh­bour­hood from the point of view Mook­ie (Lee him­self), a deliv­ery boy for the local pizze­ria run by the Ital­ian Amer­i­can Sal (Dan­ny Aiel­lo). Rather appro­pri­ate­ly, Mook­ie is obser­va­tion­al and pas­sive, and Lee plays his mel­low, reac­tive pres­ence well as he wan­ders through the day, inter­act­ing with peo­ple in the neigh­bour­hood. This par­tic­u­lar­ly hot day brings sim­mer­ing resent­ments with­in the com­mu­ni­ty to the sur­face – racism, frus­tra­tion at their neighbours’s fail­ures, and the insti­tu­tions that rule them.

Every char­ac­ter, no mat­ter how minor they may seem, exudes so much per­son­al­i­ty. There’s Bug­gin’ Out (Gian­car­lo Espos­i­to), kick­ing up a lot of pas­sion­ate fuss at the drop of a hat, Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) with his boom­box blast­ing ​‘Fight The Pow­er’ on repeat, the stern but lov­ing Moth­er Sis­ter (Ruby Dee), the kind­ly, func­tion­ing alco­holic Da May­or (Ossie Davis).

Lee’s oft-maligned scat­ter­shot style of sto­ry­telling works to per­fec­tion here, cre­at­ing irre­place­able parts of a neigh­bour­hood col­lage that feels tru­ly alive, with all the messi­ness that entails. It’s part of why the moments of anger feel so vis­cer­al. This is enhanced by some aston­ish­ing film­mak­ing craft, from the ele­gant cam­er­a­work, to the swoon­ing, jazzy score from Spike’s father Bill Lee, to Ruth E Carter’s vibrant cos­tume design.

Almost every­one in the film is just as capa­ble of hatred as they are kind­ness, per­haps the most mem­o­rable instance pri­or to the final act being a mon­tage of char­ac­ters spit­ting cru­el, racist insults about each oth­er straight down the cam­era. Watch­ing Do the Right Thing today, it is strik­ing how Radio Raheem’s death recalls the loss of so many black lives at the hands of police, not least Eric Garner.

It’s a painful and poignant moment, espe­cial­ly in light of the recent news that the offi­cer respon­si­ble for Garner’s mur­der will not be charged; insti­tu­tions once again pri­ori­tised over people’s lives. Lee’s film remains a bold expres­sion of love and frus­tra­tion and care and anger that is so vivid and expres­sive it feels like it exists in the here and now.