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Terfex.com - Do the Right Thing
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List Price: $9.98
Our Price: $4.89
Your Save: $ 5.09 ( 51% )
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: MCA/Universal Home Video
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9781558801592
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 1558801596
Label: MCA/Universal Home Video
Manufacturer: MCA/Universal Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: MCA/Universal Home Video
Release Date: 1992-03-01
Running Time: 120
Studio: MCA/Universal Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1989-06-30
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Editorial Reviews:
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Spike Lee's incendiary look at race relations in America, circa 1989, is so colorful and exuberant for its first three-quarters that you can almost forget the terrible confrontation that the movie inexorably builds toward. Do the Right Thing is 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 neighborhood 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 parlor 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 deejay Mister Señor Love Daddy. A rich and nuanced film to watch, treasure, and learn from--over and over again. --Jim Emerson
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: 3 stars out of 4
Comment: The Bottom Line:
Do the Right Thing is sometimes meandering and unfocused, and it is sometimes a bit too willing to change characters when necessary (look at the cops who are painted as decent fellows in one scene and racists in the next), but it is a powerful film that dares to ask ugly questions which have no obvious answers, and isn't that everything?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Before there was `Crash'...
Comment: ...there was `Do the Right Thing'. Honestly, anyone that downgrades `Crash' for being far too heavy-handed and unrealistic in its portrayal of race relations, yet lauds `Do the Right Thing' is obviously out of their minds; for the two films are practically the same film. The only thing that `Do the Right Thing' has going for it is the time issue, as in the film is set back in the 80's when this type of behavior was more prevalent (`Crash' is so incredibly unrealistic I wanted to literally kill Paul Haggis).
Cast aside the fact that I think Spike Lee is a terrible person, this film in general is really not that good.
Spike Lee is the type of director who either scores very high or sinks very low. When he is working from another medium (as with `25th Hour') he does a really good job, for he is a very good `director', but honestly I don't think he is a very good `writer'. His ideas are far too one-track-minded. He allows no room for interpretation and his personal observations are rather offensive at times. The fact that he expects us all to have the same opinion and openly rejects those who disagree makes him a poor choice for the campaigning of race relations in my opinion.
And anyone who considers Ron Howard `heavy-handed' should watch our, because Spike pours on layers thick, and honestly, he lacks the technique to smooth those layers out.
The film takes place in Brooklyn on the hottest day of the year. Mookie is a lazy kid who fathered a baby out of wedlock and hardly makes time to see his girlfriend and his son. He works for the local pizza place run by Italian Sal and his two sons. Mookie doesn't get along with Sal's oldest son Pino, but he seems to be friends with Vito. The film basically moves around with no real point for a long time, filtering in conversations between Blacks and Italians and Whites and Asians and Latinos in an attempt express racial tension and stereotypes. Some of the conversations are insulting and degrading, but then again there are a few that actually shed some light on the root problem Lee was attempting to broach. Many have mentioned the final frames of outlandish violence and this is possibly where the whole film falls to pieces for with all of Spike's heavy handling he failed to create something universally moving.
It was messy and frustrating; not in a good way.
Be forewarned; minor SPOILER here.
Spike tries really hard to create something profound but instead manages to further cement stereotypes and in the end takes us nowhere. The fact that, in the end, when a young man is murdered by the police we are expected to all of a sudden forget the fact the he was nearly five seconds ago harassing a man at his place of business for requesting that he turn down his radio, and the poor man, after trying to get this beatbox toting thug to leave finally breaks his stereo only to have this young man attempt to strangle him; well it's rather ridiculous. Sure, I am not an advocate for police brutality, but Spike tries so hard to capitalize on the Black mans struggle that he fails to pinpoint the real issues. The riot that ensues, after Mookie betrays his friend and boss Sal by vandalizing his store, is also a ridiculous example of Spike Lee missing the point.
Like I said; put down the pen and just stick to directing; please.
The acting is actually very good all the way around, and elevates this D grade movie to a C-. Mike Aiello rightfully deserved that Oscar nomination. His portrayal of Sal, the only sympathetic character in the film, is devastatingly effective. The scene where he is sitting in his store watching his son harass a mentally handicapped Black youth outside is haunting; purely haunting. I actually thought that Spike Lee also turned out a really effective turn as well, even if his character turned into someone I loathed. Rosie Perez is a spitfire here, lighting up every scene she embodies, and Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee make a nice pair as the block elders. There are a lot of characters that are very unlikable, but that doesn't mean the performances were bad. I hated Pino and Buggin' Out, but that doesn't mean that Turturro and Esposito were bad, they just played annoying characters.
In the end I cannot recommend `Do the Right Thing' because it really insults me and should insult the intelligence of the modern American. Spike Lee misses the whole idea behind race relations, concentrating on one particular struggle and ultimately holding their actions, no mater how perverse, on a pedestal as if they could do no wrong. The decision to end the film with two conflicting quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X was also a strange one, for it leaves the viewer with a sense of misplaced commitment. Is Lee advocating the horrific riot or condemning it? Judging from the films construction it would appear he is advocating it.
What a pity.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Do the right thing
Comment: Do The Right Thing is a very loud and in your face film and set Spike Lee up for a long career are racially charged films. Overall i quite liked the film and while there are some specific complaints that i have it still warrants praise, especially for its complex and controversial subject matter.
The film starts out quite simple, simply showing life in New York in a black neighborhood. For a large part of the film I had trouble finding any particularly coherent plot. Normally I would immediately be put off by this in a film but I think Lee makes it work. His honest portrayal of communities like this one overshadows the lack a specific plot. Later on though, different character dynamics begin to take prominence and the point of the film becomes clearer.
The acting in the film plays a large part in making to film seem real and all the actors played their parts well. I'm especially impressed by Spike Lee's ability to write, direct, and act in his films, especially at his young.
The deeper messages of the film are especially interesting though many things in the plot don't seem to get resolved. This is another thing that normally would cause me to not like a film but I think it fits the subject matter. Spike Lee doesn't try to bring unrealistic closure to the issues being dealt with.
I thought Do The Right Thing was a very good movie and deserves the acclaim it has been given and the place of cultural significance it has.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Summer in the city
Comment: Director Spike Lee wastes no time turning up the heat in this provocative allegorical dramedy about race relations in America, filtered through a day in the life of Brooklyn's multi-ethnic Bed-Stuy neighborhood. From the opening credits, which literally explode onto the screen with a muy caliente Rosie Perez busting some serious moves to the strains of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power", to the jaw-dropping climax, this is one of those rare films that manages to engage mind, body and soul all at once. One of the few films on the subject that is not afraid to admit to and confront the fact that bigotry comes in all colors. I think it remains his finest work to date. The cast includes Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Danny Aiello, John Turturro and Giancarlo Esposito. Criterion-what took you guys so long?
Customer Rating:
Summary: Shockingly overrated
Comment: The entire world loves this movie for reasons I have yet to comprehend. There is not one single likable character to be found in this picture, least of all the main character, whom Spike Lee presents as a saint for inciting a race riot. Not coincidentally, Mookie is played (badly) by Lee himself.
What Lee has constructed is a fantasy playground for himself. As his body of work shows, he's primarily interested in the lives of black Americans. His vision, however, often manifests itself as immature and highly unrealistic. For instance, not only does Mookie get to dramatically kick off the race riot (by throwing a garbage can through a window), he also gets to come back and hobnob with the proprietor of the destroyed pizzeria. Oh, and he gets to keep the money Sal owes him, plus more if he wants it.
Go ahead and rate my review as unhelpful if you want, but in my opinion this movie, like so many other made by Lee, presents his wet dream of race relations: Blacks, whites, and other minorities are equally stereotypical and horrible, but blacks are at least cool, which allows them to commit outrageous acts of destruction and get away with it. What an awful message; what an awful movie.
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