Do the Right Thing

Released: May 19, 1989

Studio: Universal

Genre: comedy/drama

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 27.55 Worldwide: --

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: -- Worldwide: 63.50

Directing: Spike Lee

Screenwriting: Spike Lee

Starring: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson

Review:

“This was the third (and breakout) feature film for African-American writer/director Spike Lee…whose resume already included She’s Gotta Have It (1986), and School Daze (1988).” ^FS “Lee writes, directs and stars as a delivery boy for a white-owned Brooklyn pizza joint.” ^RS

“The veneer of racial harmony cracks on the hottest day of the year.” ^PM “The tension begins to escalate…because of a complaint by a militant patron named Buggin’ Out (Esposito) that there are no pictures of ‘brothers’ on the ‘Wall of Fame.’” ^FS “Sal’s Famous Pizzeria becomes a lightning rod for racial tensions” ^A07 and rioting when Lee’s character “tosses a garbage can through the window to protest the murder of a brother.” ^RS

This is “an even-handed, complex and disturbing work about racism, intolerance and violence.” ^FS “The multi-ethnic cast of the film provides three-dimensional characters and features the early career work of Samuel L. Jackson (as DJ Mister Senor Love Daddy) and Rosie Perez.” ^FS

“This incendiary film – still Lee’s best – ended the Eighties on a high note of revolutionary film fervor.” ^RS “The much discussed close to the film presents different views on the conflict with quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.” ^A07