The Vault: Do the Right Thing (1989)
Now 20 years old, Do the Right Thing is as controversial as it ever was. Spike Lee's second effort after She's Gotta Have It dealt with more of the common motifs that Lee would cover over his entire career: racism, poverty, and New York.
It's a heat wave in Brooklyn and it takes everything you have just to stay relatively cool. Mookie (Lee) is a pizza delivery boy, and a father, albeit a non-committal one, who works for Sal (Danny Aiello) at Sal's Famous Pizzeria along with Sal's two sons Vito (Richard Edson) and his older confrontational brother Pino (John Turturro). Today is like every other day Da Mayor is out drinking and passing his accumulated wisdom to youths, thus the title Do the Right Thing. Radio Raheem is blaring his boom box across the city, Mookie is taking his time delivering pizzas to the considerable angst of Pino, layabouts are busting the chops of the Korean market owner, and kids are playing in the hydrant soaked streets and so on.
But when Buggin Out comes to Sal's demanding to know why there aren't any brothers on Sal's Wall of Fame Sal replies, "when you own your own restaurant you can't put whoever you want on your wall."
This stresses Buggin Out considerably and he spends the rest of his day seeking others to boycott the pizzeria. After being rebuked by almost everyone in town he finds an partner in Radio Raheem, who is still steamed Sal asked Radio to turn off his boom box. Its the end of the shift and Sal, Vito, Pino, and Mookie are ready to go home, but when four regulars come in for a slice Sal cannot refuse. It is at this point the film's racial anger comes to a head when after a heated exchange of slurs between Sal & Radio and Buggin that Sal and Radio get into a physical confrontation. The police are called and when one officer (really just a muscle bound moron) kills Radio; the whole block explodes. With everyone turned on Sal and his two sons and Da Mayor actively trying to get everyone to just go home Mookie does a very curious thing. He smashes the window of the pizzeria causing a riot and Sal's is burned to the ground.
The film ends with a mutual understanding between the patriarchal Sal and Mookie and two quotes, one by Martin Luther King and the other by Malcolm X play out the film.
Many argue that the actions of Mookie was entirely irresponsible and deserved to be condemned (Mickey Rourke famously blamed the L.A. riots on Lee's film). I like to believe that Mookie broke the window to draw attention away from Sal and his sons and instead leading to violence to the building. Its really up to your own interpretation.
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