Do the Right Thing

Plot synopsis:
Mookie (Spike Lee) is a 25-year-old delivery man living in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn with his sister, Jade (Joie Lee). He and his girlfriend, Tina (Rosie Perez), have a son. He works at the local pizzeria, but lacks ambition. Sal (Danny Aiello), the pizzeria's Italian-American owner, has been in the neighborhood for 25 years. His older son Pino (John Turturro) intensely dislikes blacks, and does not get along with Mookie. Pino is at odds with his younger brother Vito (Richard Edson), who is friendly with Mookie.
The neighborhood is full of distinct personalities, including Da Mayor (Ossie Davis), a friendly local drunk; Mother Sister (Ruby Dee), who watches the neighborhood from her brownstone; Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), who blasts Public Enemy on his boombox wherever he goes; and Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith), a mentally disabled man, who meanders around the neighborhood trying to sell hand-colored pictures of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
While at Sal's, Mookie's trouble-making b-boyish friend, Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito), questions Sal about his "Wall of Fame", a wall decorated with photos of famous Italian-Americans. Buggin' Out demands that Sal put up pictures of black celebrities since Sal's pizzeria is in a black neighborhood. Sal replies that it is his business, and that he can have whomever he wants on "The Wall of Fame". Buggin' Out attempts to start a protest over the Wall of Fame. Only Radio Raheem and Smiley support him.
During the day, the heat and tensions begin to rise. The local teenagers open a fire hydrant and douse the street, before police officers intervene. Mookie and Pino begin arguing over race, which leads to a series of scenes in which the characters spew racial insults into the camera. Pino and Sal talk about the neighborhood, with Pino expressing his hatred, and Sal insisting that he is not leaving. Sal almost fires Mookie, but Jade intervenes, before Mookie confronts her for being too close to Sal.
That night, Buggin' Out, Radio Raheem, and Smiley march into Sal's and demand that Sal change the Wall of Fame. Raheem's boombox is blaring and Sal demands that they turn the radio off, but they refuse. Buggin' Out calls Sal and sons guineas while saying that they're closing down the pizzeria for good until they change the Wall of Fame. Sal, in a fit of frustration, tells him he will "tear his nigger ass," then destroys the boombox with a baseball bat. Raheem attacks Sal, leading to a huge violent fight that spills out into the street, attracting a crowd. While Radio Raheem is choking Sal, the police arrive. They break up the fight and apprehend Radio Raheem and Buggin' Out. Despite the pleas of his fellow officers and the onlookers, one officer refuses to release his chokehold on Raheem, killing him. Realizing that Raheem has been killed in front of onlookers, the officers place his body in the back of a squad car, and drive off, leaving Sal, Pino, and Vito unprotected.
The onlookers, enraged about Radio Raheem's death, blame Sal and his sons. Mookie grabs a trash can and throws it through the window of Sal's pizzeria, sparking the crowd to rush into the restaurant and destroy it, with Smiley finally setting it on fire. Da Mayor pulls Sal, Pino, and Vito out of the mob's way. Firemen and riot patrols arrive to put out the fire and disperse the crowd. After police issue a warning, the firefighters turn their hoses on the rioters, leading to more fighting and arrests. Mookie and Jade sit on the curb, watching in disbelief. Smiley wanders back into the smoldering building and hangs one of his pictures on what is left of Sal's Wall of Fame.
The next day, after having an argument with Tina, Mookie returns to Sal, who feels that Mookie betrayed him. Mookie demands his weekly pay, leading to an argument. They cautiously reconcile, and Sal finally pays him. Mister Señor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson), a local DJ, dedicates a song to Raheem.
The film ends with two quotations expressing different views about violence, one from Martin Luther King and one from Malcolm X, before fading to a photograph of them shaking hands.

Tags: atmospheric, comedy, murder, violence

Review:
90% of Spike Lee's masterpiece Do the Right Thing is a perfectly developed character study of a wide range of model personalities who all happen to be in Bedford-Stuyvesant on the hottest day of the summer.
Drawing from two incisive but different comments on violence from Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, Lee extrapolates his story and the ideas he wants to explore by showing us characters that are as real as they are exaggerated and somewhat unpredictable events that they create, are swept into or actively or passively participate in.
Well acted (Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Giancarlo Esposito, Rosie Perez, Spike Lee and Richard Edson really stood out for me) and very nicely soundscaped, Do the Right Thing is the perfect film for a solitary night of reflection or for sharing with an intelligent group of friends.
In all likelihood Spike Lee's most important achievement - as director, writer and actor (though to my taste Mo' Better Blues is just as good a picture) and one of the strongest films you'll see about race relations, 'Do The Right Thing' looks dated at times, but it lost none of its impact and relevance.
The movie takes place in a particularly hot day in a primarily African-American neighborhood in Brooklyn, and follows the various personalities who live there throughout the day; the center of the story is Sal's Famous Pizzeria - its owners, some of the few white people living in the neighborhood: Sal (Oscar nominated performance for Danny Aiello) and his two sons (John Torturro and Richard Edson), and Mookie (Spike Lee himself), the black delivery boy.
Spike doesn't put as much emphasis on the characters themselves as he does on the relationships and the tension between them; and in this image of a very specific and small frame in time and place, makes a strong and important message about racism and race relations in general.
From the uninhibited anger of Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) and Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) on one side and Pino (John Torturro) on the other side, to Jade (Joie Lee, Spike's sister in the film and in real life) and Vito (Richard Edson), who are trying to connect and live at peace with the other side, to Da Mayor (Ossie Davis), in his isolated but peaceful state of mind, living in complete peace with the world around him, and Smiley (Roger Smith), living in his own isolated existence.
It is Mookie and Sal, in fact, who ultimately play the main part.Do The Right Thing is not an easy watch; it's a mesmerizing, tense, difficult film that breaks many taboos and slaughters many holy cows.
Do the Right Thing is a masterpiece in both style and substance, and Im hard pressed to think of a more powerful, earth-shattering film.But first, let's talk about the style.
While it should be applauded for taking on the subject of race without Hollywood's usual heavy-handedness, simply presenting a topic doesn't automatically mean anything is actually being said about that topic.Whatever problems there are with the content, Do the Right Thing is still great film-making.
Lee also manages to out-Altman Altman by presenting a large cast of characters without it ever becoming confusing or disjointed.Taking place over the course of one scorching day in Bedford-Stuyvesant, most of the action occurs in and around a pizzeria run by Sal (Danny Aiello) and his sons Pino and Vito (John Turturro, Richard Edson).
But the entire neighborhood is featured as the film intercuts between various exchanges, many of them tinged with racial overtones: while Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) challenges a white tenement owner when he feels slighted, down the street three men debate the right of a Korean to own a variety store in "their" neighborhood.There are personal moments as well: Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) continually attempts to soften Mother Sister's (Ruby Dee) opinion of him, while Mookie (Lee) juggles time between his job at Sal's and his increasingly aggravated girlfriend (Rosie Perez).
Although Lee doesn't have the time to make all his characters three-dimensional, he avoids sentimentalizing or demonizing any one group; there are both blacks and whites who are sympathetic (Sal, Da Mayor) and troublesome (Pino, Radio Raheem).
Lee made a movie about racism; but we're so starved for challenging works, for thematically mature movies, we've embraced a film that ultimately says nothing more than "racism is bad" and "no one person or group is to blame."The simplistic ideals of Do the Right Thing are most evident in four scenes: 1) Love Daddy lists practically every major black musician from the last fifty years; 2) in an overly contrived sequence, Mookie gets Pino to admit that his cultural heroes are all black (Magic Johnson, Eddie Murphy, and Prince); 3) Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan are all mentioned; 4) the words "Tawana Told the Truth" appear spray painted on a wall (a reference to the Tawana Brawley controversy of 1987).
In fact, the film can be best described as a cinematic materialisation of Martin Luther King's famous "an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind" speech.For this movie, Spike Lee has put together a terrific cast, that includes many actors that have gone on to become big names in the movie industry, people such as Samuel L.
The cast comes together excellently and the neighbourhood that Spike Lee has created for this film feels very real, and through the multiple personalities that inhabit it, it manages to stay interesting and realistic throughout.
Spike Lee delights in showing us many different people, and at different times - including their reactions to certain events and their interactions with each other, and it all helps to build up both their own characters and the neighbourhood that they live in.
This proves to be invaluable to the film as it has no real plot and therefore relies on the characters and the neighbourhood that it has created to build itself, it's scenario and therefore it's message, up.Do the Right Thing is a portrait of how multiple cultures live together in modern day America and it also succeeds in being a stark and potent portrayal of how violence never gets anyone anywhere.
Seen through many points of view Spike Lee paints a convincing and critical picture of tensions in the most diverse city in the USA.The film's strength is its ability to ring true to many sets of ears and especially if you frequent or live in a big city.
If a situation gets out of hand and you have people throwing slurs at each other there is that famous expression: "he crossed the line." Well even with critical hindsight, this "line" isn't always visible and when it is, it's faint.Spike Lee manages to show that very well and with a lot of diverse characters, hence the film being able to ring true with an equally diverse audience.The only problem is that in today's America the issue is more about class and not just race, though race and class are intertwined.
SPOILERSI saw this movie recently, and I found myself disturbingly reminded of why I hate this film so much.Now maybe some who have praise for this film are a little perplexed by this, so let's look at a few points: we have a black man who goes into a pizzeria and decides to incite a riot because there are no pictures of black people on the wall.
The directing is surprisingly inept, the cinematography is overrated, the acting from the majority of the characters in the film is laughable and unbelievable, the script is flimsy, and the dialogue is utterly groan-worthy.Speaking of groaning, anytime where there is a scene that they decide to use the incidental music composed for the movie (which is probably about five times during the course of the movie, and often if the scene involves either or both ML and Mother Sister) I dare you to try not to groan.
One of them is Mookie, played by director Spike Lee, who works at an Italian pizza place with Sal(Danny Aiello) and his sons(John Turturro plays the more promiment one)and hangs out with fellows like Radio Rasheen, a creepy thug who blasts terrible music from a radio he takes with him everywhere, Smiley, a "nice" retarded fellow with an annoying stutter, and Buggin' Out(or something like that) a beyond obnoxious and beyond loathsome fellow who does not like Sal's pizzaria because he only hangs up pictures of white people.
Anyway, somewhere along the film, Mookie is told by a gent called Da Mayor(Ossie Davis)who old veteren of the slummy neighborhood he lives in that he needs to "do the right thing," which I guess would mean get his life in gear.
That would make it seem like it was going to be some character study completely centering around Mookie, but instead the film primarily focusses on about five different subjects: Mookie and his job at Sal's, Mookie's relationship with his girlfriend(the useless subplot), those terrible friends of Mookie and their crusades around the neighborhood(they try to lobby for that stupid protest and act awful to everyone who passes by), some heat wave(don't ask me why) and racial issues.
I also didn't really mind what they did to Radio Rasheen, though I'm sure I was supposed to.And I can go on and on about my dislike for this film, but it would probably go long over the 1000 word limit, but just trust me, this is one to be avoided because even slightly redeeming factors in this movie(like Ossie Davis's character) get old very quickly.
Spike Lee's use of unstated stereotypes constructs particular kinds of racial landscape which in turn inform the kinds of interactions different characters have throughout the movie.
This film has tremendous acting performances by a number of actors and actresses, and Spike Lee's involvement in this movie is sensational!!
Right there, we listen to rap music, saying "fight the power"; and when we see Spike Lee in his character Mookie, we know there's something about Lee's life.
It's a sunny day; Mookie goes to work and bumps into a lot of people: Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) and his friends Cee (Martin Lawrence), Punchy (Leonard Thomas) and other girls, the retarded Smiley (Roger Smith) Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) attempting to conquest Mother Sister's (Ruby Dee) heart, Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) spreading style all over, Tina (Rosie Perez) waiting for his man, three old men sitting in the street talking about lifeThis is black territory all the way through.But there's also "Sal's (Danny Aiello) Famous Pizza", hated by his son Pino (John Turturro), who works there with his other brother Vito (Richard Edson), but loved by the entire neighborhood.
When Da Mayor tells Mookie: "Always, always do the right thing", and Buggin tells Sal that he is planning to boycott his placeYou feel something; like the way I felt as I watched "It's the rage".
"FIGHT THE POWER!" I think Spike Lee did a great job with this film and I enjoyed his character who sat on the fence of controversy and watched it destroy his neighborhood.
One of Spike Lee's best (and most discusses) films- Do the Right Thing, tells the story of the community in the small yet important Bedford-Stuyvesant and the different characters and situations that come together in some way or another on the hottest day of the summer.
Written, directed, acted and photographed with pizazz and with a superb quality about it, Do the Right Thing shouldn't be ignored, and should be watched if only to get a better understanding of what Spike Lee did for a breakthrough.
The major characters' name are Mookie, Da Mayor, Radio Raheem, Sal, Pino, Vito, Buggin out, Jade, Mother- Sister, Samuel, and Mister Senior Love Daddy.The theme of the movie is going the right thing.
This movie isn't good due to good acting though, it's more due in part to the question that the film poses and at the end you'll find Spike asking you who you thought did the right thing?.
Do the Right Thing is a Spike Lee classic film.
The 1989 film Do the Right Thing directed by Spike Lee, is by far one of the first films that showed both spectrums of the racist card that is still played in America today.
The main characters in this film are; "Mookie", who is played by Spike Lee himself," Da Mayor", who is played by Ossie Davis, "Mother Sister, who is played by Ruby Dee, "Radio Raheem", who us played by Bill Dunn, "Jade" (Mookie's sister) who is played by Joie Lee, "" Smiley", who is played by Roger Guenveur Smith ,"Buggin Out" who is played by Giancarlo Esposito, and "Sal", who is played by Danny Aiello.
Spike Lee's film Do the Right Thing, is a wickedly intense story of inner city racial tensions and the problems ethic groups struggle with every day.
The rest of the predominately black neighborhood rightly views him as an idiot.Spike Lee himself plays Mookie, the closest thing to a protagonist in the film.
Spike Lee himself does a good job as Mookie, the film's central character, though one can't help but wonder if there might have been a more established actor who might have been stronger in the part.
"My job is to put the spotlight on race relations in this country" says director Spike Lee, referring to his film Do the right thing.Do the right thing is political film which does not force a view on the responder, however, represents different characters from diverse races who are all "acting according to their own version of the right thing" The film is loosely based on 'the Howard Bech incident of 1986' which sparked growing racial tensions in New York.
Spike Lee certainly does not overestimate the power of film saying "no films going to change things overnight" however he uses various film techniques, (mise en scene) clever cinematography, and amazingly convincing performances of the American under class as a vehicle to bring into focus very serious racial and economic issues.The Hollywood film delivers a disturbing political message, and is an Obvious "wake up call" to society.
Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, is the most masterfully crafted movie that I have ever seen.
Not even Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird would have anything to say about this and even his character is among the top heroes for thinking racism is bad.Our hero is no other than Mookie (played by Spike Lee), a young man who's working at a dead end job delivering pizzas so that way he could support his wife (Rosie Perez) and child.
Vito (Edson) is the only son who shows generosity to those around him like his father, where Pino (Turturro) has the hatred for black people and even Mookie gives him a lesson by asking him all the questions from favorite entertainers and all of his answers are African American entertainers (Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan).There are different characters in this film from Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn of Spider-Man) who carries his boom box everywhere as his heart and soul.
Jackson, in a small and good role, plays Mister Senor Love Daddy, Brooklyn's voice where not only does he start his music at six in the morning but is the voice of reason for everybody to chill out.While there are some moments were you will laugh, there are scenes that make you think about what goes on including a montage where Spike directs scenes of different actors saying about how they feel about the races around them.
"Do The Right Thing" is an early Spike Lee opera which takes place during one hot summer day in a Brooklyn neighborhood where the weather brings the people out into the streets and in contact with each other.
(not unlike the racial reversal Travolta film 'White Mans Burden')Of course you can go on forever talking about how racism is bad, and stereotype this and negativity that, but as Mookie shows us what he doesn't learn, it all comes down to (money?) doing the right thing.
Full of style, color, and humor, Spike Lee's masterpiece "Do The Right Thing" takes place during the hottest day of the year in a Brooklyn neighborhood.
But, it's still a very heavy film at times as well.Spike Lee portrays racism in a very powerful and meaningful way, and he doesn't just show whites oppressing blacks, which is refreshing to see, since it's a cliché in a film about race to show that all of the black characters are saints who don't have prejudices of their own.
Which is what I think Spike Lee wanted us all to feel watching this movie.
I suppose people can see what they want to see in the film, but the movie is much more complex than simple Black/White issues.
African-American Mookie (director Spike Lee) works at Sal's (Danny Aiello) pizzeria.
Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing is a powerful film with a phenomenal cast.
The tensions between white and black America was brewing and then Spike Lee dropped the bomb with "Do The Right Thing".
Then there's the Spike Lee character who works for this white people and tries to "do the right thing" by working yet he turns into one of the "animals" at the drop of a hat?
Each character is given just the right time to ease their self in our mind allowing us to believe that even after the movie ends, the neighborhood continues to live.Why I think do the right thing is important is because even after the civil rights movement, people thought racism was coming to an end.
In this way, you can consider the characters of "Smiley" and ""Radio Raheem" as a clumsy attempt to demand more rights and tolerance towards black people."Do the right thing" is probably Spike Lee's most accomplished movie and one of the finest movies devoted to racism..
"Do the Right Thing" excels in every way a movie can; engaging story, great characters, a stellar cast with brilliant performances and beautiful cinematography.