Red Hook Summer
2012120 minutes
rated R
by Scott Mendelson
Red Hook Summer, Spike Lee's first theatrical feature since The Miracle at St. Anna in late 2008, arguably intends to be a return trip to the world of Do the Right Thing, which put Spike Lee on the mainstream map twenty-three summers ago (and still remains among his best films). While this is just one of several trips to Brooklyn (along with She's Gotta Have It, Do the Right Thing, Crooklyn, Clockers, and He Got Game). the appearance of Spike Lee's Mookie still delivering pizzas two decades later is surely meant to inspire a certain connection to that 1989 classic. The new picture operates less on a mediation on racial tension and class resentment and more on the damage the African American community has allowed to do to itself in the post-Reagan era. The film barely qualifies as a feature, existing more as a series of speeches and/or literal sermons than any kind of traditional narrative. But as a personal statement, it marks Spike Lee's return to openly provocative cinema after a decade of (often superb) documentaries and (occasionally terrific) mainstream studio fare. The use of digital video, with bright colors so rich they threaten to bleed out of the screen, signifies an elder statesman giving up on the idea of becoming truly mainstream and just saying everything he has to say come hell or high water.
