Clockers
Tags: violence, murder

Plot synopsis:
In a Brooklyn housing project, a group of "clockers" - street-level drug dealers - sell drugs for Rodney Little (Delroy Lindo), a local drug lord. Rodney tells Ronald "Strike" Dunham (Mekhi Phifer), one of his lead clockers, that another dealer, Darryl Adams (Steve White), is stealing from him and "got to be got", implying that he wants Strike to kill Darryl. Strike then meets with his brother, Victor Dunham (Isaiah Washington) and tries to persuade Victor to kill Darryl Adams.Rocco Klein (Harvey Keitel) and Larry Mazilli (John Turturro), homicide detectives, ride to the scene of Darryl Adams' murder. Larry and Rocco receive a phone call from another detective who says a man has confessed at a local church that he killed Darryl. The police meet Strike's older brother Victor at the church and take him in for questioning. In the interrogation room, Victor tells Rocco that he shot Darryl Adams in self-defense. Rocco finds holes in this story and starts looking into Victor's background which includes two jobs, a wife, two children, no criminal record, and aspirations to move out of the projects; Rocco comes to the conclusion that Victor is covering for his younger brother.Rocco pressures Strike but Victor sticks to his story, so Rocco convinces Rodney that Strike has confessed and informed on Rodney's drug ring. Rocco arrests Rodney and then humiliates Strike in front of his crew. Strike gets together some money and decides to leave town, but a younger boy who admired Strike shoots Errol, Rodney's enforcer, with Strike's gun. Rocco lets Strike leave town.

Review: Just as heat represented racial tension in Lee's masterpiece "Do The Right Thing", Strike's sickness represents the illnesses plaguing the ghetto: drugs, guns, liquor.Like DTRT, this film looks at community.
When Spike Lee applies his formidable talents to a genre piece like Richard Price's best selling drug noir novel, "Clockers," you might wonder what kind of hybrid you'll get.
Lee is justly famous for his incendiary agitprop films of ideas which dissect race relations and urban living, sometimes at the expense of cohesive storytelling; but working with source material as thought provoking a novel as "Clockers," which is set in Lee's home base of "Crooklyn," er, i mean Brooklyn, Spike finds the right mix of action, angst, and intellectualism for his strengths to shine.
Central character brothers Isaiah Washington and Mekhi Phifer (in his star making role) turn in complex credible performances but are easily outshone by the astonishingly strong acting out of Harvey Keitel, Delroy Lindo, Regina Taylor (who won awards for her work here), Keith David, and Lee regulars John Turturro and Thomas Byrd.
Rodney represents the draw of selling drugs, of quick money while policemen Andre (Keith David) and Klein represent his conscience trying to get him to do the right thing - Andre and Tyrone's mother (Regina Taylor) particularly doing right by your own community.The message is at times forced, Keitel's sequence towards the end is very clever cinematically but feels a bit like a sermon, but at other times we're allowed to work it out ourselves.
There was some great character development, especially on the part of Delroy Lindo (another great performance).Lee did a good job in his portrayal of the drug culture in the projects, as well as taking a look into the police's side of the story.
Spike Lee is no fool and a lot of his early work on recent viewings seem to revolve around someone stuck in a situation that is a mere result of their emotional drive and the world they are living in: She's Gotta Have it; Jungle Fever and Clockers are good examples of protagonists committing an action they really shouldn't have (and probably didn't want to but buckled under either temptation or peer pressure) and now must face the consequences.
It's not a very great movie, perhaps, because by this time Spike Lee has so much invested in the style of his cinematic theatrics, of how the nature of the camera itself related to those of the characters, that it comes close to going over substance.
But it's is a worthy attempt at putting into context, via the conventions of genre going back to the 40s, as to what makes or breaks the ties between drug dealers and their workers, and how the workers (or 'Clockers' as per the title of the movie) go about their business in the streets.Clockers has a main plot that pushes along, as the murder by multiple gun-shots of a Darryl, black fast-food worker, who was also apart of the crew of Rodney (Delroy Lindo), call into question who might have done it.
The clockers are bunch of would-be gang-bangers who talk a lot of talk, but haven't walked nearly as much as Earle, best friend of Rodney's and psychopathic murder, or Rodney himself, who has that veneer of being like the one you can trust the most- half surrogate father as well and half good cop/bad cop boss- until he gets crossed.Although Price's material, which comes through with the energy and occasional wit, is noticeable throughout, it's really Spike Lee as director and many of the actors who make this a consistently watchable movie.
His character also has the intriguing qualities that mark him as something of an outsider however in he might be: his stomach virus, which is never resolved but always looming over him, and his love of electric train-sets.And all the while, Clockers succeeds in presenting a time and place where there should be little to no hope, and it makes the cops and criminals both pretty well-rounded when compared to other genre films.
There are little details that help make Lee's film interesting when it veers into being like a television serial; the white yuppies who get entangled in the case; the over-protective but very smart cop (Keith David, always a pro) who also tries to play surrogate father to Tyrone, albeit without the same care, however negative, as Strike has; the brief shots of the drug addicts with their habits on display, as we only need to see it for less than a minute to get the nature of the bottom of the food chain, which is total despair.
Clockers is a great film about moral reality and tough decision making when certain situations present themselves.Strike seems to be a good guy that makes the wrong choices and is reluctant of which way he wants to go either right or left.
If he only cares about appeasing his crowd, okay, but that doesn't mean I have to like or praise everything he does, like Roger Ebert and the rest of them.For the uniformed - and we're better off, in this case - "clockers" is a ghetto term for "drug runners or dealers."In this story, it's drug dealers and cops, innocent people and thugs and an investigation (is Mekhi Phifer's "Strike" guilty or innocent?) to get it all sorted out.
richard price's book is about the odd humanity of the drug war - basically that underneath something so destructive to our culture we find, on both sides, cops and clockers, real ordinary people with real lives real failure, real dreams, capable of real humanity and real evil at the same time - price never glorifies crime, never makes either side "cool", never sets his words to an artificial rhythm other than the rhythm of an ordinary world - price understands ordinary people and the endless cycle of violence that permeates everything - yet despite this great source material lee's film is myopic in that in only attributes humanity to the clockers, artificial in that it lionizes street culture - amazingly, he takes a simple and real story and makes it into the usual lee ethereal mess (which sometimes works, "do the right thing" being one of the best movies ever made) ...
Let me say that I just finished the novel, and have only just watched the film.I try not to be one of those people who reads a book, watches the movie, and then tears the latter apart, but there are some significant issues that come to mind when considering this adaptation.1: There is just too much music and scoring.Thus the whole thing feels artificial, or like an after-school special come to life with ghetto undertones.
Regardless, the overall effect cheapens the drama and removes all the real life consequence the story and characters naturally possess (as written).2: The acting comes across as preachy.Consequently, the whole film seems like it trying to prove a point (and nothing else).
Let me show you how." And on the other, it's reaching out to the dominantly white congress, senate, electorate & bureaucracy, and trying to show these people the human cost of their ignorance, bad public policy making & flawed humanitarian ideals and voting.So the thing is, Richard Price's writing is excruciatingly realistic, and his novel, though not without its genre tropes, is equally exacting, and poignant.This film, however, feels like a very well-hearted effort to render the former, but that gets lost in way too much ideology..
It's funny that I'm reviewing this movie, because I was actually in this movie, I was only there for one day, I had SO much fun on the set, and I was REALLY myself, I was about 5 or 6 when they were shooting this movie, and I did not even know they were filming me playing around with my sister, I mean my mother introduced us to Spike Lee, I also saw Mehki Phifer and Fredro Starr at the time he's cool to work with, and I like the fact that his movies addresses issues in the black community.Clockers is a great example of what happens in Brooklyn, it wasn't fair that Mehki's character got the blame for a murder that his brother committed.
Opening on a striking note with a montage of gory crime scene photographs set to romantic music, 'Clockers' hints from early on at the desensitisation of its protagonists to their violent lives as the film to come focuses on a group of African American youths groomed by local druglords to sell their product.
The film is very well acted by all concerned and director Spike Lee is never one to shy away from necessary grit and grime, yet this is an oddly sentimental movie at the end of the day, heavily focused on the well- meaning adults in the neighbourhood who want anything but the local crime influence to rub off on the younger generation.
Strike (Mekhi Phifer) is a street pusher or clocker working for drug-lord Rodney Little (Delroy Lindo).
Young drug pushers in the projects of Brooklyn live hard dangerous lives, trapped between their drug bosses and the detectives out to stop them.When watching this film, knowing it first went through the hands of Martin Scorsese, one cannot help but wonder how Spike Lee does it different than Scorsese would.
And that no-way-out situation is embodied by the main protagonist, Strike (Mekhi Phifer), a clocker working for Rodney (Delroy Lindo), the crime lord of the neighborhood.
The film is more about complex human interactions, because while Keitel and Phifer get closer one another, their mutual affection feel more real and genuine than with Rodney, and might pave the road to Strike's redemption.I know this 'redemption' word is kind of hackneyed, but I know Scorsese co-produced the film, and I felt some intense Scorsesian vibes in that gritty depiction of an underworld and the torment poisoning the main character's life, in the real meaning of the world since Strike is also victim of chronicle ulcer that gets bloodier as the film progresses, like a metaphor of his moral downfall and an imminent deadly conclusion.
Music is scored by Terence Blanchard and cinematography by Malik Hassan Sayeed.Young drug pushers in the projects of Brooklyn (Clockers) are caught between loyalty to their drug boss and the detectives out to stop them.It's not as incendiary as one might expect of a Spike Lee joint, but the director's concerns and astute knack for story telling are very prominent features.
From the downward spiral of life for young men earning their pay by illegal means, to fretful mothers desperately trying to keep pe-teen kiddies from joining the ranks of what they think are cool operators, the morality of the play is forcibly rammed home by Lee. Unfortunately this comes at a cost to the white cop characters, who are too thinly drawn to offer up a law and order counter point to the illegal activity involving drugs and murder, they serve only as the "man", and damn the "man" at that.
That's unless he disassociates himself from his fellow crack dealers, called clockers, and the person they work for local barber and neighborhood drug lord Rodney Little, Delory Lindo.It's when Little takes Strike under his wing and tells him that he'll go places in the world by becoming a big time drug dealer like himself, not a bottom feeding 24 hour pusher, that thing turn around for Strike and for the worst!
The cop handling the case of Darryl Adam's murder Det. Rocco Kline, Harvey Keitel, is very sure that Victor a hard working and law abiding, as well as good family man, citizen is covering up the fact that it was his always in trouble with the law younger brother Strike who was Darryl's actually killer.Not leaving any stone unturned Det. Kline get's Strike's handler and drug supplier Rodney Little to suspect that he ratted him out to the cops in supplying himself and his fellow clockers with crack.
This had Strike, with Det. Kline's help, leave the city of New York and start a new life, where no one knows him, in far off Albuquerque New Mexico doing what he loves best: Learning to become a motorman on a freight train going cross country!****SPOILER***** As for who killed Darryl Adams that becomes evident late in the movie in a long and bloody flashback in how rumors can lead to murder if the person spreading them doesn't care whom, the person who's killed or the one who kills him, he ends up screwing!
This is a long overdue review, being that I had the pleasure of seeing this film when it was first released."Clockers" is an urban tale about Strike (Mekhi Phifer), a drug dealer running a crew on the benches of his New York City Housing projects, who unconsciously has a desire to live a righteous life but doesn't see anyway out of the drug game.
Spike Lee either used real crack addicts for these scenes or the greatest actors ever that can play crack addicts flawlessly.The ending could be perceived as anticlimactic but it all works well for a satisfying, motion picture experience.I was unimpressed by the camera-work and the cinematography, particularly the reversal film look of the movie.
The cinematographer should have kept the look clean instead of grainy.The performances weren't without flaws, with some that seemed over-the-top (Spike Lee's style) or muted, like the young boy that idolized Strike.However, Mekhi Phifer, making his motion picture debut, was like a tour de force, bringing the New York City street attitude and slang to the big screen rarely seen in film and television while leaving out the trained thespian, unauthentic feel that undermines any actor's portrayal of street kids from the N.Y.C. Keitel, Turturro, David and Lindo were all excellent, rounding out the supporting cast.This is a great film if you're looking for something urban and gritty, driven by a murder mystery against the backdrop of 1990's Brooklyn, before the gentrification.
I usually like Spike Lee films, but with Scorsese, one of the greatest movie directors of all time working beside him, the directing could have been much better.
Clockers was originally to be a Martin Scorsese picture, but he change his mind and made Casino instead, so than Scorsese asked Spike Lee if he'd want to direct, and that he did.Plot: Strike (Phifer) works as a clocker (drug pusher) in a New York ghetto under the tutilage of drug-lord Rodney Little (Delroy Lindo).
Average urban drama that showcases a slice of New York mid 1990's ghetto street life.The intention here is to create a who done it movie combined with a message that the ugliness of the ghetto crime culture comes more from the illusion of it's glamour and hype and less from the corruption of the law enforcers.A surprising message indeed from Spike Lee.Probably Spike chose to portray this side of the situation in order to showcase the theme in a different angle while still maintaining accuracy.Also,by portraying the situation this way,he gets more respect from the white community which is something Spike has been secretly yearing for.Spike wants this white recognition while still maintaining his black/no sell out credentials.This delicate tip toeing shows in this movie.It suffers from screenplay inconsistensies,having great scenes then having less quality scenes.Also,the characters here are very unglamorous in order to stay true to Spike's intentions so these characters become very unlikable.Something like watching an HBO documantary on the bowels of urban society.The good music/cinematography and the who done it as slight garnishings.I like this genre presented more in the standard winning formula way,just like DO THE RIGHT THING,BOYS IN THE HOOD and MENACE TO SOCIETY where we get all documentation,message,story and GLAMOUR mixed in for a home run.The message here though,despite it's presentation flaws,is accurate.Only for ANTI DRUG DEALING people(who will truly enjoy the extreme de glamourization of the criminals here) and big fans of the lead actors......
Great street story about a young dealer named Strike (Mekhi Phifer) that runs a drug spot for old school gangster Rodney Little (Delroy Lindo).
It is painfully obvious that life has become so cheap that they really can't care anymore and joke about the bodies.Harvey Keitel as Det. Rocco Klein gives what I consider to be his best performance as he tries to solve a murder, not knowing the man he has (Isiah Washington) is really the killer, but was put up to it by his brother, Ronald 'Strike' Dunham (Mekhi Phifer), a small time drug dealer who is into model trains.Delroy Lindo (Ransom) is Rodney Little, the main drug supplier and one not to be messed with.
Strike is a young drug dealer and leader of a gang of clockers,but they all work under the orders of Rodney,a known gangster.Also in the story is Errol Barnes,a psycho junkie infected with H.I.V. and probably the most violent of them all.The film is about a murder investigation,the horrors of Crack,and life in a ghetto let loose on it self.The sound track is also good,straight out of this world of crime and misery!.
Lee opens the film with a most sombre body count, setting the scene for a deep, soul searching film that never really eventuates.One can imagine the original story, from Richard Price's novel, was an intriguing and thought provoking one about a family man with an impeccable employment record who steps forward to claim responsibility for a killing that detective Rocco Klein (Harvey Keitel) is just not convinced he committed.Lee doesn't focus on this strong narrative though, he rather concentrates on the culture of the 'clockers' (drug dealers) in Harlem and his rather pathetic central character, Ronald 'Strike' Dunham (Mekhi Phifer).
Produced by legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese and based on a novel of the same name by Richard Price (he wrote the screenplay as well), Clockers tells the story of a small-time drug dealer named Ronald "Strike" Dunham (played by Mekhi Phifer who at the time, had never acted in a film before and got picked out of 1,000 people in an open casting call).