Product Description

The hottest day of the year explodes onscreen in this vibrant look at a day in the life of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Featuring a stellar ensemble cast that includes Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Robin Harris, Samuel L. Jackson, Bill Nunn, Rosie Perez, and John Turturro, Spike Lee's powerful portrait of urban racial tensions sparked controversy while earning popular and critical praise. Criterion is proud to present Do the Right Thing in a new Director Approved special edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11935 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-02-20
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 120 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Spike Lee's incendiary look at race relations in America, circa 1989, is so colorful and exuberant for its first three-quarters that you can almost forget the terrible confrontation that the movie inexorably builds toward. Do the Right Thing is a joyful, tumultuous masterpiece--maybe the best film ever made about race in America, revealing racial prejudices and stereotypes in all their guises and demonstrating how a deadly riot can erupt out of a series of small misunderstandings. Set on one block in Bedford-Stuyvesant on the hottest day of the summer, the movie shows the whole spectrum of life in this neighborhood and then leaves it up to us to decide if, in the end, anybody actually does the "right thing." Featuring Danny Aiello as Sal, the pizza parlor owner; Lee himself as Mookie, the lazy pizza-delivery guy; John Turturro and Richard Edson as Sal's sons; Lee's sister Joie as Mookie's sister Jade; Rosie Perez as Mookie's girlfriend Tina; Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee as the block elders, Da Mayor and Mother Sister; Giancarlo Esposito as Mookie's hot-headed friend Buggin' Out; Bill Nunn as the boom-box toting Radio Raheem; and Samuel L. Jackson as deejay Mister Señor Love Daddy. A rich and nuanced film to watch, treasure, and learn from--over and over again. --Jim Emerson

DVD features
The Criterion Collection and Spike Lee have delivered an abundance of treasures in this new edition of Do the Right Thing. Addressing the viewer in video commentary specially filmed for this two-disc set, Lee warmly remembers the creative process and extraneous hoopla of his first masterpiece. Cameras were rolling on the day of the first read-through, capturing a fascinating glimpse of veteran actors and soon-to-be-knowns beginning to understand how special the film was going to be. Among other treats there's an illuminating one-hour making-of documentary; an interview with editor Barry Brown; and the video of Public Enemy's most lasting anthem, "Fight the Power." But Lee saves the best for the very end, delivering a "last word" in which he deliciously lambastes critics (by name!) who misguidedly predicted racial unrest upon the film's theatrical release. --Ryan Boudinot

Customer Reviews

Summer in the city
Director Spike Lee wastes no time turning up the heat in this provocative allegorical dramedy about race relations in America, filtered through a day in the life of Brooklyn's multi-ethnic Bed-Stuy neighborhood. From the opening credits, which literally explode onto the screen with a muy caliente Rosie Perez busting some serious moves to the strains of Public Enemy's "Fight the Power", to the jaw-dropping climax, this is one of those rare films that manages to engage mind, body and soul all at once. One of the few films on the subject that is not afraid to admit to and confront the fact that bigotry comes in all colors. I think it remains his finest work to date. The cast includes Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Danny Aiello, John Turturro and Giancarlo Esposito. Criterion-what took you guys so long?

Shockingly overrated
The entire world loves this movie for reasons I have yet to comprehend. There is not one single likable character to be found in this picture, least of all the main character, whom Spike Lee presents as a saint for inciting a race riot. Not coincidentally, Mookie is played (badly) by Lee himself.

What Lee has constructed is a fantasy playground for himself. As his body of work shows, he's primarily interested in the lives of black Americans. His vision, however, often manifests itself as immature and highly unrealistic. For instance, not only does Mookie get to dramatically kick off the race riot (by throwing a garbage can through a window), he also gets to come back and hobnob with the proprietor of the destroyed pizzeria. Oh, and he gets to keep the money Sal owes him, plus more if he wants it.

Go ahead and rate my review as unhelpful if you want, but in my opinion this movie, like so many other made by Lee, presents his wet dream of race relations: Blacks, whites, and other minorities are equally stereotypical and horrible, but blacks are at least cool, which allows them to commit outrageous acts of destruction and get away with it. What an awful message; what an awful movie.

A beautiful movie, by the genius of our time.
Do the right thing is amazing!!! As we all know it is the tale of race relations in America, set in Brooklyn in the Bedford-Stuyvesant community. This movie glows as it shows the racial tension that still goes on today. Lee shows that as diverse as America is, instead of diplomatically talking out our differences, we fear what we do not understand and as minorities fight ourselves, while (some) of the racist majority laugh as they like to see our downfall. It is downright dazzling that Spike Lee can show culture whether black, Italian, Chinese, and white in a fun perspective when talking about race. The day like this one has happened in communities across America racial tension and all and it is about time that somebody said documented it. This being stated a common point is often missed in the film when Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Who did the right thing? They and the black characters both did. By buggin' out boycotting Sal's Pizzeria for selling pizza to African Americans in their community, and not acknowledging them (pictures on the wall), he represents Martin Luther King. MLK boycotted to make a difference and when inspiring leadership he found it hard to get followers in some states (like buggin out did). When they burned down the shop as a act of revolution for killing radio rahiem it was Malcolm X, not to say that Malcolm was violent, he was nonviolent, and peaceful man who believed in self defense, however, he said that revolution is violent and that is what happened. In the end Spike Lee communicated how a man lost his shop and another man lost his life becuase we did not, and still at times are not working together to solve our problems. Spike Lee is the last classic director we have in illustrating what America tries to hide, and challenges us to change it!!!!