Do the Right Thing (1989)

On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.

Director:

Spike Lee

Writer:

Spike Lee

Stars:

Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee

Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 14 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Danny Aiello	...	Salvatore 'Sal' Fragione
Ossie Davis	...	Da Mayor
Ruby Dee	...	Mother Sister
Richard Edson	...	Vito
Giancarlo Esposito	...	Buggin' Out
Spike Lee	...	Mookie
Bill Nunn	...	Radio Raheem
John Turturro	...	Pino
Paul Benjamin	...	ML
Frankie Faison	...	Coconut Sid
Robin Harris	...	Sweet Dick Willie
Joie Lee	...	Jade
Miguel Sandoval	...	Officer Ponte
Rick Aiello	...	Officer Long
John Savage	...	Clifton

Storyline

It's the hottest day of the year in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and tensions are growing there, with the only local businesses being a Korean grocery and Sal's Pizzeria. Mookie, Sal's delivery boy, manages to always be at the center of the action.

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Plot Keywords:

bedford stuyvesant | violence | pizzeria | hate | korean | 

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Taglines:

It's the hottest day of the summer. You can do nothing, you can do something, or you can...

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Italian Spanish

Release Date:

30 June 1989 (USA)

Also Known As:

Heatwave

Filming Locations:

Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$6,500,000 (estimated)

Gross:

$27,545,445 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Graffiti on the wall behind Mookie and Jade reads "Tawana told the truth" in reference to the Tawana Brawley alleged rape and abduction case of 1987.

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Goofs

When Mookie throws the trash can through Sal's window, the reverse shot from inside the restaurant reveals the main camera, in the lower left portion of the screen, dollying in towards the window as it's smashed.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Mister Senor Love Daddy: Wake up! Wake up! Up you wake!

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Connections

Spoofed in Family Guy: Lethal Weapons (2001)

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Soundtracks

"Tu y Yo"
Music and lyrics by Rubén Blades
Performed by Rubén Blades
R.B. Productions, Inc. (ASCAP)
Courtesy of Elektra Records

User Reviews

excellent drama with a message

If I had to make a list of the top ten things that I find most boring, racism would be right at the summit along with economics and The Blair Witch Project. For that reason, I have avoided Do the Right Thing up until now for fear that it would be a lecture on racism...but actually, I don't know what I was afraid of, as this film is really good. Spike Lee's racial drama is actually more a film about the feebleness of racial divides and how violence only breeds violence, as opposed to a film ABOUT racism. In fact, the film can be best described as a cinematic materialisation of Martin Luther King's famous "an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind" speech.

For this movie, Spike Lee has put together a terrific cast, that includes many actors that have gone on to become big names in the movie industry, people such as Samuel L. Jackson, John Turturro and Martin Lawrence, not to mention smaller stars such as Ossie Davis. The cast comes together excellently and the neighbourhood that Spike Lee has created for this film feels very real, and through the multiple personalities that inhabit it, it manages to stay interesting and realistic throughout. The atmosphere of the neighbourhood is also of note, and you really do get the feeling that someone could say 'biatch' or 'dogg' at any time. Spike Lee delights in showing us many different people, and at different times - including their reactions to certain events and their interactions with each other, and it all helps to build up both their own characters and the neighbourhood that they live in. This proves to be invaluable to the film as it has no real plot and therefore relies on the characters and the neighbourhood that it has created to build itself, it's scenario and therefore it's message, up.

Do the Right Thing is a portrait of how multiple cultures live together in modern day America and it also succeeds in being a stark and potent portrayal of how violence never gets anyone anywhere. Spike Lee has shown his talents as an actor, director and a writer with this film, and even though majority opinion of him seems to be that he's a disagreeable old crone; at least he's one that has talent.