# Do the Right Thing (1989)

### reviewed by
Jeff Meyer

                                 DO THE RIGHT THING
                                     [Spoilers]
                             A film review by Jeff Meyer
                              Copyright 1989 Jeff Meyer

After having watched SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT and SCHOOL DAZE, getting me to go see a Spike Lee movie isn't particularly difficult. Any writer and/or director who can spin characters such as his during the length of a film gets attention, because, gang, there ain't many out there who can. What Lee has done with DO THE RIGHT THING is to jump yet another notch up in my estimation: he's using his abilities at characterization to examine the personalities and emotions in a neighborhood which lead to a violent incident -- the kind of complex event that is so often explained away with a simplistic rationalization or off-hand prejudice. By spending a day with each person, and detailing each of their personalities (and their relations with one another) in such detail, we come to understand why and how they get to the state their in by the end of the film; and, in turn, to be caught up in the intensity of the conflagration that engulfs them.

It's not a new concept in film, to be sure, but it rarely done this well; trying to center on these many people, and build complete characters out of them by the end of the film, is a monumental task for a writer or a director, because by the end of DO THE RIGHT THING, it's absolutely necessary to understand where these people are coming from, or the whole film doesn't work. Lee make it work. Some characters are more in focus than others, but no one is a stereotype or a cardboard reactionary, with the exception of the local police officers. However, the film is about the people in the neighborhood, not the police; the police's purpose is a plot device, a catalyst to the community's feelings -- their individual feelings, and their individual actions.

This is also one of those films where script and direction are so on-target that it's difficult to gauge the quality of the actors; suffice it to say that no one gives their role less than it's due. I imagine I'd give credit to Lee and Danny Aiello as Mookie and Sal in particular, as they have two of the most complex roles to deal with; but several of the other actors score deep marks by the end of the film, in particular the actor who plays Radio Raheem. As striking (if not more so) than any individual performance is the photography and editing in DO THE RIGHT THING; often the way a person is photographed tells us as much about their thoughts as their expression or their dialogue. It becomes very difficult towards the end to remember that there's a screen between the audience and the characters; that familiar, comfortable barrier is broken down by Spike Lee by the end of this film. This is not a film where you'll walk out and switch back to what you were doing before you entered the theater; it required a cooling-down period and a good deal of reflection (and conversation) in my case.

A brief side note: from some of the net traffic, it appears that a number of people see the film as "promoting racism", or excusing racial violence, or something of that nature. I can't see it. Lee presents a number of points-of-view, and allows us to understand why each individual feels the way they do during the length of the film. As for justifying any particular viewpoint, I must have missed it (other than "racism is bad"). The only thing that confused me were the quotes by Martin Luther King and Malcolm X at the end. The person I went to see it with suggested something that appeals to me, however: that these two differing views of the use of violence in regards to racism, simple in the axiomatic nature, are contrasted with the complex situation and feelings that confront the members of the block in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The only person who clings to these viewpoints through the film is Smiley, who appears to be simple; the Mayor, arguably the most sympathetic character in the film (to me, anyway) has a hazy, less clear-cut philosophy that provides no easy instruction: Do the Right Thing. Humans follow ideals, but they live with what they run into in life. The Mayor, and the title of the film, deal with this type of situation: no easy situations or answers, but the necessity of Doing the Right Thing is underlined.

                                            Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
    INTERNET:     moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
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