Title: Do The Right Thing
Grade: B+
Times Viewed: 1
Date Reviewed: 04/25/05
I wanted to love this film. I really did. But whether it was the completely ambiguous ending or the unnaturalness of many characters, I couldn’t. That’s not to say that I dislike ambiguity–but here I felt something was lost by Spike Lee’s reticence to lay out clearly his opinion. Movies about race are tricky to do without offending someone, and usually director’s take one of two routes: they either go for the “conventional route” by excessive moralizing–completely failing to realize basic human nature and the realities of money and poverty; or they go for the “I’m gonna lay it out for you and let you decide” route–which is what Lee does in this movie. Some characters are obviously racist, others less obviously see, and finally some are completely ambiguous. Here, I think, the movie loses much of its impact by sticking to reality. The mob scene at the end is not as dramatic as it could have been, and while it may be more realistic, as I’ve mentioned before (with Maria Full of Grace), movies shouldn’t try to be realistic and dramatic at once–it simply cannot work.
Tags: b+ films, do the right thing
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