Do the Right Thing review

 Number 409 on the top 1000 films of all time is Spike Lee's coming-of-age comedy-drama 'Do the Right Thing.'

Mookie (Spike Lee) is an African-American living in a rough Brooklyn neighbourhood. All he wants from life is to make enough money from his pizza delivery job at Sal's pizzeria so he can support his family. However, on an excruciatingly hot day, racial tensions between Sal (Danny Aiello,) and his sons Pino (John Turturro) and Vito (Richard Edson) and the other African-Americans in the neighbourhood including Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) and Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) a man who fancies himself the next Malcom X. As a race riot threatens to break out, Mookie is forced to pick a side.

Do the Right Thing is just another film in a long list tackling one of the US' most pertinent issues: race relations. The US is known as the greatest melting pot playing home to people from all over the world. It's only natural that some of those people might not like each other as is the case here.

The deeply racist Vito resent working in an African-American neighbourhood and believes they should be with their own kind. Meanwhile, the African-American community doesn't like that white-owned businesses at the heart of their town. They believe there should be black businesses instead. It's a powder keg waiting to blow.

Another theme that Lee is explores is police brutality - another issue that has plagued the US for decades. Do the Right Thing was dedicated to Eleanor Bumpers, Arthur Miller Jr, Edmund Perry, Yvonne Smallwood, Michael Stewart and Michael Griffith - with the former five having been killed by police and the sixth by a white mob. Only a few years later, Rodney King was beaten and I do not have the necessary computer memory to write the name of every single black person who has been killed by the police in the last twenty-five years, except for one of the most notable: George Floyd.

Spike Lee tackles both of these subjects with his stylistic flair - think bold colours, razor-sharp dialogue and all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Sure you can argue that he was exploring themes too important not to tackle head-on, but this exploration was incredibly on the nose. One scene has the different characters speaking directly to the camera, as they monologue racist insults about different groups of people. Sure this racism might be accurate, but its depiction was heavy-handed.

This isn't to denigrate the acting of those involved - least of all from Spike Lee as the lead Mookie. Giancarlo Esposito was also good as the political cognizant Buggin Out - it was amazing to think this was the same man who wowed audiences in Breaking Bad. But the standout star had to be Danny Aiello who received a well-earned Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Initially, Sal is nothing more than hard-working Italian-American who often plays the mediator between his deeply racist son Pino and the black customers. However, not even the good-natured Sal can only keep his demons at bay for so long before he is driven too far on an excruciatingly hot day. Unlike Pino who overly hates blacks, I think Sal was a lot more level-headed, but, like the other characters, he fell victim to the simmering racial tension.

John Turturro was also very good as Vito. He gave a multi-layered performance, as one of the more openly racist characters of the film. It would have been all too easy to have written/portrayed him as a one-dimensional Italian-American "moolie" hating greaseball, but he was more three-dimensional than his.

But I would like to say one thing quickly. Why in these films do you always have the black characters being racist to the East Asian, or in this case, Korean characters? The local supermarket is ran by a Korean couple who are often the subject of racist taunting by the black characters. It was something similar to Menace II Society. Perhaps it was Lee's commitment to realism, but it didn't make his characters very endearing.

However, 'Do the Right Thing,' was a memorable and stylised, if heavy-handed, exploration of two issues that have plagued American society for decades. What was the right thing that Sal and Mookie should have done? Who knows?  

Miller's Crossing review

 Number 391 on the top 1000 films of all time is the Coen Brothers' 1990 neo-noir gangster film Miller's Crossing.

Set in prohibition-era America, Miller's Crossing follows Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) right-hand man to Irish mobster Leo O'Bannon (Albert Finney) as O'Bannon wars with rival Italian gangster Johnny Casper (Jon Polito.) Reagan desperately tries to stay alive as he plays off the two sides against each other. Marcia Gay Harden and John Turturro co-star.

Miller's Crossing comes quite early in the Coen Brothers' career - being only the third film they made. As such, I would argue it was one of their more straightforward films. Unlike their later efforts of the Big Lebowski, Fargo and Oh Brother, where art thou, there was far less off-the-beat humour and far less surrealism. This made it an enjoyable and engaging gangster flick made at a time where they had some stiff competition from the likes of Goodfellas, Carlito's Way and Casino. The 90's was a hell of a time for gangster films for sure.

Yet what separated Miller's Crossing was not only the prohibition setting but its also strong cast. A highlight among them was Jon Polito who brought a brilliant, maverick energy to Caspar. It was the perfect balance to veteran English actor Albert Finney who gave a calm and measured performance as the far older Leo O'Bannon. John Turturro was also great as bookie Bernie Bernbaum. He soon makes an enemy of Caspar by continuously skimming off his match-fixing winnings. It looks like Bernbaum is nothing more than a greedy schnook, but he proves himself to be cleverer than meets the eye.

And nowhere is this more true than with our protagonist Tom Reagan. Although he begins as a close ally of O'Bannon, he soon realises that he has to play both sides if he has any chance of surviving this growing mob-war. In 2009, the Guardian labelled Gabriel Byrne one of the best actors to have never received an Oscar nomination (but bear in mind this article is years out of date) and he was good in this film. It's a fair comment as Byrne plays the man caught between two sides very well. And a quick shoutout to Marcia Gay Harden who would go onto prove why she later went onto win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Although it might have lacked some of the surreal humour that the Coen Brothers are so well-known for, it still had the same stylistic flair they're so well-known for. The dialogue was sharp and snappy and its cinematography and style have been emulated well in future decades. Did the scenes in the titular Miller's Crossing remind anybody of a certain episode of the Sopranos?

Miller's Crossing might have been one of the Coen Brother's earliest films before we really knew what they had to say as film-makers, but it was certainly an enjoyable enough effort. And they showed why, like Marcia Gay Harden, they went onto win Oscars of their own.