Do The Right Thing (1989) * *

Directed by:  Spike Lee

Starring:  Danny Aiello, Spike Lee, Samuel L. Jackson, Rosie Perez, John Savage, Bill Nunn, Giancarlo Esposito

I watched this movie for the second time recently.    I first saw it over twenty years ago and enjoyed it until the final twenty minutes when everything blew up.    Years later, I had the same reaction.   I enjoyed Do The Right Thing up to the final twenty minutes.     At that point, a major character commits an inexplicable act and what follows is so out of left field that you're at a loss to account for it.    

It's a pity because Do The Right Thing gets a lot of things right until the last act.    It takes place in a multi-racial Brooklyn neighborhood on the hottest day of the year.   As the temperatures soar, so does the collective temperature of the neighborhood.     Much of the action centers at Sal's Pizzeria, owned by Sal (Aiello-in an Oscar-nominated performance).     Sal's place has been a staple in the community for years and has operated with little strife.    However, on this day, a customer complains that there are photos of Sinatra and other white men adorning the walls, but no black men.    Sal's answer that it's his restaurant and he'll put whatever pictures he likes on the walls doesn't satisfy the customer, who grows angry and is thrown out.     The customer, played by Giancarlo Esposito, is enraged and attempts a neighborhood boycott of Sal's.  

Sal is played by Aiello as a reasonable man who just wants to run his shop without problems.    He loves making pizza and wants one day to leave the place to his sons, but may be tone deaf about his relationship to his multi-ethnic neighborhood.     Sal's lone delivery man is Mookie (Lee), whose loyalty to his race is questioned by the enraged customer and his sidekick, Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn).  Radio Raheem is large and carries around a large boombox on his shoulder.    He doesn't play Sinatra on it.    Mookie is seemingly level-headed and avoids controversy.   He has enough issues of his own, including a son and a girlfriend who wants him to do more with his life.    Sal likes Mookie, despite riding him about being late, and says, "You have a job here as long as you want."   

Things get testy in the neighborhood.    The Korean-owned store across the street from Sal's becomes a target of hostility, the police get involved in a racially charged altercation after an accident, and you know things will come to a head by day's end.    How this happens is my primary issue with the movie.   

In pro wrestling, a "swerve" occurs when a heel (bad guy) or face (good guy) does something unexpected and immediately switches his character to the opposite of what he was.    There is no buildup and no one sees it coming.     In wrestling, swerves are surprising and they work.   In Do The Right Thing, Mookie swerves and (spoiler alert), starts a race riot by throwing a trashcan through Sal's shop window.     Sal's shop is destroyed in the riot.     Mookie's swerve is so extreme and so out of character that we can't accept it.    We spend more time dissecting Mookie's motives than on the action and this robs the scene of any emotional power.    

Swerves work better in wrestling because they create a surprise for a previously narrowly defined character.     They don't work as well here.     Usually in a movie, some hint is given that a character may change allegiances or his outlook on life.    Maybe it was done in Do The Right Thing, but if it happened, I missed it.     The confrontation between Sal and Mookie the day after the riot is also a head-scratcher.     It appears to be an attempt to mend things, but after what Mookie did to Sal's place, I wouldn't blame Sal for taking a few days before he begins to forgive.  

So what we have with Do The Right Thing is a puzzling film which works very well for the first two acts before disintegrating in the third.     Lee would approach the racial subject in other films including Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, etc.     Certainly it is a subject worth pursuing, although Do The Right Thing ultimately becomes too puzzling to be entirely effective.