Review of Do the Right Thing (1997) by Mike H — 10 Feb 2012

To all criticism of this great film, I'm going to say it up front: Spike Lee is allergic to B.S.

I keep hearing how some people dislike this film because the characters are so contradictory. Because Mookie didn't do the right thing. Because the moral of this tale is unclear on whether violence is okay or not. And so on and so forth...

In "Remember the Titans", based on a true story, we have a team of football players overcoming their racial differences and becoming the best of friends. It never happened. In "Missippi Burning", based on a true story, we have white FBI agents hunting down the men who murdered three civil rights activists. In reality, the FBI barely investigated those murders at all. Spike Lee's best film is different because it takes an approach the above films don't.

Rather than portray race relations how they idealistically should be, he simply portrays race relations as they simply are.

No final commentary. No moral. Just characters expressing their different points of view.

Anyone who's ever had a racist grandma knows just how contradictory racism can be. One minute, she bakes the best peanut butter cookies in the world; the next, she says she's going to stab your black girlfriend with a kitchen knife. Yes, it is completely reasonable for a man like Sal on a hot day to want to bust a black man's head in with a baseball bat one minute, then flirt with a black woman the next minute. It's completely believable for a man like Pino to throw ethnic slurs around like he's trying to bring them back, and yet have an affinity for black entertainers. It's completely realistic for Mookie to want to get paid at the end of the day, and throw a trashcan through the window of the same place he works at.

The entire film is an exercise in alternative character interpretation. That's what makes it fascinating upon repeat viewings. Did Mookie throw the trashcan to save Sal's and his sons' lives, or to vent his rage over Radio Raheem's death? Why did one police officer not realize he was killing Radio when his partner was outright shouting at him to let off? Was Sal really a kindly old man who loved the community, or was his excessive use of that baseball bat proof of an underlying racist tension? Why, throughout the entire film, did not one person do the right thing? What exactly was the right thing to do anyway?

In the end, this film accomplishes what all great films do:

It makes you think!