Number 97 is one I hadn't seen before - in part cause I was in High School and a million miles away from Brooklyn, NY - (literally - like - a few years ago White Supremacists moved into my home valley thinking it was a refuge - that's how far I was from Urban America)
A nice change from the last two - it feels powerful, relevant, and I GUESS controversial for it's time? It seems tame to what would come after it - Boys n the Hood and West coast Gangsta rap -
it's one of those movies where it's a portrait of life for a day in a neighborhood in Brooklyn - it's pretty much shot on the same one block (since renamed do the right thing way in honor) and as the day goes, tensions in the neighborhood elevate till there's fallout. I've read a couple essays about this film, including one by Ebert and I fell into the same trap most white viewers did when watching this - this film is pretty old so I'll give away a spoiler or two below
If you've seen the film, you know that one of the neighborhood characters gets killed by the cops after a fight, and the neighborhood starts to riot against the guy he was fighting with, the white owner of a pizza shop in a black neighborhood. I found myself wondering why Spike's Mookie would start the act that sets off the riot by tossing the trashcan thru the window. But then I forgot that yes, his friend died minutes before by the cops, and the other instigator in the fight - (if not the one who called the cops) was the owner of the pizza shop - over pictures on the wall, no less. Had Sal handled things better, the fight would have never occurred. Some speculate Mookie was retaliating - some that he was turning the mob on the movie so it didn't focus on the people anymore but the way he walks away from Sal and sons as the crowd starts in suggests to me he wasn't gonna make a stand for him.
When the movie closes it puts two quotes up - side by side - Martin Luther King, Jr talking about the need for non violence, and Malcolm X talking about the need for self defense. It's almost up to the viewer to decide whether what Mookie and the neighborhood did was right or not. I like that - I like leaving a moral judgement up to the viewer instead of spelling it out (like I heard was done with an alternate ending where Sal and Mookie make peace after the riot) -
Did Mookie do the right thing? there ya go -
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