Some people told me that this movie was a little bit boring than other ones that we watched before, and they don’t understand what it is talk about, and the stories are too mess. However, I loved this one most. The little stories it contained are very powerful and set me thinking. I can feel that this is really a serials movie, but I'm not black people, so I'm not pretty sure whether I totally understand the point this movie really want to tell us correct or not, but I still find much from it.
At the beginning, first time I can not understand why it shot the woman so long just show she dancing, and the noisy music make me uncomfortable, then love daddy appear, and keeping saying“wake up wake up”. But after dray's answer I understand that is because the director wants to wake the audience up, if you listen to the music when the woman dancing carefully, you can hear the lyrics contains this words “got to give us what we want, gotta give us what we need, our freedom of speech is freedom or death, we got to fight the powers that be, let me hear you say. Fight the power”.
From the color we can feel that it’s very hot there, Do Mayor wake up by the noise from the radio, It makes us feel uncomfortable, and seem like it is tell us that this will not have a happen ending at last. When I saw Martin's photo in this film I realize it would be the story about black people who want to “fight the power”. But until the end, I didn’t find anyone who really fight the power.
The main story is happen in Sal's pizza shop. Sal is a kind guy, until the end of this film I still think he is very nice, even thought he is strict to Mookie. Sal is kind to smiley when Pino shout at him. Mookie ruin his shop's window, then other people rush in and burn it, everyone will be crazy if their shops were ruined by their worker, but he still pay Mookie money. He thinks the radio is too noisy and ask him to turn the radio off, I don’t think there is anything wrong of it. But radio man refuse to turn off, so they fight, what happen next is, police appear, and killed radio man as an accident. People feel angry, so they choose to break Sal’s shop to express their rage. Poor Sal! Buggin argues with him many times due to the photos on the wall don't have anyone who is black, by the way, I think Buggin is really a ridiculous man, what he like to do is hang around and argue with others, like trouble maker. Sal thought that is his wall, he has the right to decide whatever he want to hang, maybe he just doesn't like to compromise to others. They argue about this again and again. If buggin really want to prove something, this is not what he should do. There are other things which is more worth him to do.
The other hero Mookie, I think he may be the reason the director set to stand opposite against Sal. Mookie has a family, and the first scene of him, he is counting his money in a very dark room, and he is very happy. We can tell that he loves money so much that through all the movie we can keep hearing he say to Sal “Can you pay me money now?” At the beginning he always the man who stops the fight in Sal’s pizza shop, he doesn’t have any dream, he just help deliver pizza, try to make his wife happen, and earn money to support his family, that’s it. Even at last he breaks the windows, that is also all he did. He stands there, and just watch. Doesn’t rush in to fight, doesn’t stop it too. What exactly he is thinking about? Nobody knows.
I have to say that I really love the radio man, especially the scene when he show love and hate use his special ring. He always carry the radio, and always win when other one let he turn off. But also because of this, he died at last. In my opinion he is the real hero in this movie, the radio always play the music “fight the power”, and one scene is one guy is listening to some music, radio man pass him and the guy require he to turn off the radio, he doesn’t say any word. Then the guy turn up the voice, and radio man turn up the radio voice too, then the guy said “you win”. How cool the radio man is!
Da mayor is also a nice guy. He often be made fun by some young guys, but he doesn’t care about that, he just be himself. He is also the one who said “do the right thing”. He save a child, but the child doesn’t thank him, and his mother even blame him at first, we can tell that do right thing can not always have the good ending. But in the other way, he makes mother sister respect him.
One more thing I want to say about this film is the word they use, like “f**k” “s**t” , like every sentences they say must contain a bad word. Maybe this is what we call “black humor”?
It’s seems like it is a common film at the beginning, just like some guys quarrel everyday, some guys talk in the street and make some trouble for police. But everything happens in the last minutes shocks everybody. Everything is mess. People fight, shout. What irony is the Korean man hit the police when they try to carry radio man away, but when some black people want to go into his shop, he hold the sweeper and shout that he is black.
After watched this film, I don’t know whether I should have sympathy for them or not, for Sal, he live in an area where most people around he is black, why can’t he just hang one photo of black people? He did nothing wrong, why his shop be the victim of this confrontation? For Mookie, how impulse he is. What he get from this? Losing job? Breaking with Sal?
In this movie, I think everyone is in the same level, black people is not higher than white people, or white people is more respectable than black people. Black always said we should elimination of racial discrimination，but they are also the man who confront it. I think in this movie, black people are too sensitive, they have the thought that they are lower than white people, that is the reason why they want to see black people’s picture in the pizza shop? No black people’s picture on the wall, so what? It doesn’t mean anything. But they think that means they are not respected. Sal is kind to Mookie’s sister, he thought Sal has some bad ideas. Funny = =
This movie doesn’t have any fantastic sequences, only a street, a shop, this two are almost all the stories happen. But these things, give us a real cool movie. Everyone is a epitome of this society. They have different personality, some of them are cowardice, they affair to fight, some of them are brave, they understand what they want and fight for them, even it will hurt themselves.
What exactly the RIGHT THING is? I can just say it depends. Do the black guys ruin Sal's shop is the right thing? Does Mookie break his boss's shop first and let himself lose the job is the right thing? Does the radio man insist hand black people’s photo is the right thing? Black people can fight for their right not by violence, just like smiley draw a crown on Martin. Martin is the man who is against violence. Smiley gives him a crown, but some other black guys are doing the opposite thing.
