| | | It's the hottest day of the summer. You can do nothing, you can do something, or you can...
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 1.85:1, English, Spanish, Dolby
Unanimous critical acclaim embraces this inventive and extraordinary film from Spike Lee. Newsweek calls it "astonishing". The Houston Post describes it as "exhilarating, joyous, and screamingly funny". USA Today calls it "1989's best film". This powerful visual feast combines humor and drama with memorable characters while tracing the course of a single day on a block in the Bedford-Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn. It's the hottest day of the year, a scorching 24-hour period that will change the lives of its residents forever. Danny Aiello co-stars in this absorbing tale of inner-city life that heats up with vivid images and unforgettable performances.
Editor's Note
Spike Lee's racial and political filmmaking bent is given the full treatment with this simmering exposé of racial tensions in a New York City neighborhood one scorching summer day. The film, written by Lee (and nominated for an Oscar), follows a group of racially diverse inhabitants from Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood as they spend their day trying to avoid the oppressive heat. These include African American pizza deliveryman Mookie (Lee), the racially sensitive Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito), and the silent, boom-box-blasting Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn). Also thrown into the mix are Sal (an Oscar-nominated Danny Aiello), the Italian-American proprietor of Sal's Pizzeria, as well as his two sons, Pino (John Turturro) and Vito (Richard Edson), who hold completely opposing attitudes when it comes to race. After Buggin' Out tries to organize a boycott of Sal's because of the lack of racial diversity on his shop's Wall of Fame, the tensions explode in an act of senseless violence. Lee's film is an electric work of political entertainment that confronts sensitive racial issues head-on. He deftly blends humor and drama as well as using specific music to further amplify his theme (Public Enemy's song "Fight the Power" actually becomes the film's main catalyst for action). Boldly closing the film with opposing quotes from Malcolm X and Martin Luther King on the nature of race relations, Lee leaves it up to the viewer to decide if Mookie's actions were the correct ones. Aiello and Esposito are standouts in an all-star cast that includes Lee himself, his sister Joie, "discovery" Rosie Perez, and the married team of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Always one to spark controversy, Lee's summer drama finds the filmmaker at the peak of his craft.
Plot Summary
In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, disc jockey Mr. Señor Love Daddy wakes his morning listeners with soulful rhythms and prepares them for the sweltering heat of the summer's day. The nearby eatery and hangout is Sal's Famous Pizzeria. Young locals Buggin' Out, Radio Raheem, and pizza delivery guy Mookie view Sal's as a symbol of the successful economic and cultural assimilation of Italian Americans and as an oppressive economic force that profits at their expense. Existing racial tensions between merchant and community are exacerbated when Sal refuses to place pictures of prominent African Americans on his shop's Wall of Fame. When Radio Raheem and Buggin' Out confront Sal on his exclusionism, tempers fly and tragedy ensues. Spike Lee's DO THE RIGHT THING is an electrifying motion picture that remains one of the 1980s' most powerful films. In portraying a day in the life of several Brooklyn residents, Lee builds his story at a leisurely, comic pace, building to a violent climax that raises questions rather than answering them.
| Features | Audio: English, French Dolby Digital Surround | | Subtitles: Spanish | | Production Notes | | Talent Bios | | Film Highlights | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Theatrical Trailer |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Universal |
| Release Date: 1/9/2007 |
| Running Time: 120 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1989 | | Catalog ID: 20242 | | UPC: 00025192024221 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, French Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | 1.66:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Oscar (1990) | | | Danny Aiello, Nominee, Best Supporting Actor | | | Spike Lee, Nominee, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly For The Screen | |
Cannes Film Festival (1989) | | | Spike Lee, Nominee, Golde Palm | |
Golden Globe (1990) | | | Spike Lee, Nominee, Best Director |
| Memorable Quotes| "Twenty D Energizers."----Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), to a deli clerk |
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
"...Lee's best and boldest film....[He] gives the audiences the most vigorous shake-up they've had in years..." 06/29/1989 p.27Sight and Sound
"...DO THE RIGHT THING is aesthetically very sophisticated..." 09/01/1989 p.281 USA Today
"...Lee's film is stirring....It is floridly cinematic....This is a fascinating movie experience, confident in style..." 06/30/1989 p.1D Film Comment
"...DO THE RIGHT THING has furious drive and muscle..." 07/01/1989 p.67-9 Los Angeles Times
"...DO THE RIGHT THING announces the coming-of-age of an important filmmaker with something urgent and uncomfortable to say....A stunning entertainment..." 06/30/1989 p.C1 Chicago Sun-Times
"...Assured, confident....[Lee] takes this story, which sounds like grim social realism, and tells it with music, humor, color and exuberant invention. A lot of it is just plain fun..." 06/01/2001 p.33 Total Film
"...A subtle and ambiguous work....The still undervalued Danny Aiello is superb..." 07/01/2003 p.137 Premiere
4 stars out of 4 -- "Spike Lee's best film....It remains a beautifully shot, funny, smart, and thought-provoking masterpiece." 06/30/2009 Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
...it comes closer to reflecting the current state of race relations in America than any other movie of our time...Anyone who walks into this film expecting answers is a dreamer or a fool. But anyone who leaves the movie with more intolerance than they walked in with wasn't paying attention. - Roger Ebert
Washington Post 10 of 10
...this is a complex, multilayered movie, and the in-your-face attitude supplies only the movie's powerful, thumping bass line. The story as a whole--the melody--is sweeter, mellower, and Lee orchestrates the mixture of elements masterfully, first letting one dominate, then the other. - Hal Hinson
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