Do the Right Thing (1989) Do the Right Thing (1989)

See also: _Index | Plot Structure (Do the Right Thing) | Backbeats (Do the Right Thing)

IMDb

Quick Facts

  • Director / Writer / Producer: Spike Lee
  • Starring: Spike Lee (Mookie), Danny Aiello (Sal), John Turturro (Pino), Richard Edson (Vito), Giancarlo Esposito (Buggin' Out), Bill Nunn (Radio Raheem), Rosie Perez (Tina), Ossie Davis (Da Mayor), Ruby Dee (Mother Sister), Samuel L. Jackson (Mister Senor Love Daddy), Joie Lee (Jade), Roger Guenveur Smith (Smiley)
  • Cinematography: Ernest Dickerson
  • Editor: Barry Alexander Brown
  • Music: Bill Lee (score); Public Enemy, "Fight the Power" (theme)
  • Production Design: Wynn Thomas
  • Runtime: 120 minutes
  • Budget: approximately $6.5 million
  • US Box Office: approximately $27.5 million
  • Release Date: June 30, 1989 (US wide)
  • MPAA Rating: R
  • Distributor: Universal Pictures

Overview

A single block of Stuyvesant Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn on the hottest day of the summer.b1 Sal's Famous Pizzeria has been on the corner for twenty-five years; the photographs on the wall are all Italian-Americans; the neighborhood is mostly Black and Puerto Rican.b3 b7 Mookie delivers pizzas, his sister Jade visits, his girlfriend Tina waits on him with their son, and the wider block — Da Mayor, Mother Sister, the corner men, Mister Senor Love Daddy on the radio, Smiley with his Malcolm-and-Martin photograph, Buggin' Out demanding faces on the wall, Radio Raheem cycling "Fight the Power" through the block — moves through the day under rising heat.b6 b9 b27 The fight starts at the pizzeria over the boombox and the wall of fame; the police arrive; Radio Raheem is killed in a chokehold; Mookie throws a trash can through Sal's window and the place burns.b31 b32 b34 The film closes with the Mister Senor Love Daddy roll call and two paired epigraphs from Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X on violence in self-defense.b38