Do the Right Thing

lbunuel

The best analysis of class and race discrepancies in the age of multiculturalism ever put on screen. While many filmmakers are proud of their useless ambiguities, the questions here are urgent and really force us to reconsider what we thought we knew. This is Spike Lee's timeless masterpiece, and fuck Wenders for giving the Palm D'Or to Soderbergh instead of this. What a stupid choice.

Elephants Gerald

With each viewing, this movie only gets more complicated, sadder, & yet more humming, crawling out of its skin with ideas. Lee spends 90 min basking you in human behavior & relationships, then drops a distressing conflict into the mix. In a political climate where every answer is easy, it's now even more painful to watch a film that seems to say "the right thing" isn't so easy to define.

josé neves

rewatched. A great example of an urban symphony, in a sense an heir of King Vidor's "Street Scene," a theatrical occupation of a specific décor and of a strict time, socially on the fringe of Woody Allen's usual social stratum. The visual delirium, image and set design, is rare and of an accurate taste - mostly for the recent North-American cinema - which grand finale is a conceptual moment of ideologic discussion.

Gabe

The characters, the dialogue, the vignettes. It's amazing how well this holds up and how relevant it is today. Unlike the polarized hate fests on social media, this film doesn't present any judgement; instead it forces you to confront the human side of race relations.

Alexander Dunkelberger

Race is a touchy subject in America. This is not a touchy film. It's a punch. Bloody knuckles, bruised and unabating. The best aspect of the film is it's not an attack on the viewer, politics, or society, really. Well, it is and it isn't. What it isn't doing is taking sides, and it isn't saying what's right or wrong or pointing fingers. It's simply happening, as it is and has across this country.

CutTheBlueWire

Do The Right Thing' is many things. It is often funny, tragic and most of all brave. It is brave to put such a hot issue onto film in a way that neither condones nor condemns the actions that characters take, there are no clear heroes or villains in the film. Do The Right Thing introduces you to numerous characters and merely asks you to watch, never to judge, only to observe the world Lee has created.

Hannah Seitz

one of the best screenplays ever. every character in this ensemble cast is richly written and flawlessly casted. spikes direction is wild and stylish. the climax of this story is one of the most intense things I've ever watched. this is truly one of my faves

msmichel

The film that should have won the Oscar in '89 and didn't even get a nomination (Driving Miss Daisy...really?). Lee's treatise on modern race relations in America is as powerful a film now as it was on release. The conflict one feels at the mixed messages portrayed are the same that communities feel in day to day life. Characters are exceptional and genuine and the film achieved Lee a space in cinema history.