Do The Right Thing (1989)

     Do the Right Thing, directed and written by Spike Lee, staring Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, and Ruby Dee, is a strong and racially sound film. The main character Mookie, played by Spike Lee, is an African American man working at Sal's Famous Pizza Shop, an Italian pizzeria owned by Sal, played by Danny Aiello, and his two sons, Vito and Pino, played by Richard Edson and John Turturro. Sal's is in a Brooklyn city block with Latinos, Blacks, and Koreans, but not really any whites.
     Inside Sal's is a wall of fame, filled with famous Italians. Considering that mostly blacks eat at Sal's, Buggin' Out, played by Giancarlo Esposito, asks to have some Black people put up. When Sal refuses, things start to bubble under the surface. Buggin' Out along with Radio Raheem, played by Bill Nunn, and Smiley, played by Roger Guenveur Smith, go into Sal's at closing time and demand he put up "brother" on his wall. Raheem's radio blasting Fight the Power by Public Enemy, anger's Sal to the point that he destroys it with a bat. Raheem then pulls Sal over the counter and starts choking him as the rest of the crowd erupts. When the white cops finally come and restrain Raheem, Officer Gary Long, played by Rick Aiello, strangles him to death with his police stick and Da Mayor, played by Ossie Davis, yells to stop.
     Finally the police take in Buggin' Out and Radio Raheem's body. The crowd is now so angry over witnessing Raheem's death at the hangs of a white cop, that they need to take their anger out. Mookie grabs a trash can and throws it through Sal's window. Following, the crowd rushes into Sal's and tares it apart. Smiley then starts the fire and in the small flames, he hangs a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, smiling, on the wall of fame.
     This film's message about racism in America is huge. No one race is hated more than the others. In the scene where they break the forth wall and characters start speaking badly about the other races, you understand that everyone is hated. In Roger Ebert's 2001 review of Do the Right Thing, he says, "