Do the Right Thing
1989 · Directed by Spike Lee
Original language: English
- drama
The story
Sal is the Italian owner of a pizzeria in Brooklyn. A neighborhood local, Buggin' Out, becomes upset when he sees that the pizzeria's Wall of Fame exhibits only Italian actors. Buggin' Out believes a pizzeria in a black neighborhood should showcase black actors, but Sal disagrees. The wall becomes a symbol of racism and hate to Buggin' Out and to other people in the neighborhood, and tensions rise.
What it’s like
Hot, crowded, and restless, this is a film of saturated summer color: a block of Bedford-Stuyvesant baking under a relentless sun, reds and oranges of the pizzeria walls and painted storefronts pressing against the blues of a hazy sky. Spike Lee shoots with a kinetic, almost ricocheting energy, tracking handheld through the street and cutting on the rhythm of overlapping conversations, while Bill Lee's score and the constant hip-hop and radio drift from open windows keep the soundtrack loud and alive. Its vibe is simmering, volatile, and humid, the feeling of a long hot day where everyone is slightly too close to everyone else. It moves in escalating waves of humor and friction, mostly loose and funny before the afternoon turns hard, and its characters shift from neighborly ribbing toward a reckoning with what the block means to them. Intensity is high: racial slurs, verbal aggression, and a late, sudden act of police violence that is brief but brutal, with the chaos of the final act landing hard. It suits a restless, wide-awake evening rather than a gentle one. It is for viewers who want an urgent, talky, multi-voiced portrait of a city neighborhood under pressure, with humor, anger, and music pulling in equal measure.
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