Mookie (Spike Lee) delivers pizzas for Sal (Danny Aiello) in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Bedford-Styuvesant in Brooklyn. Sal has been in this location for decades but his son, Pino (John Tuturro), wants him to move to a more ethnically Italian neighborhood. Over the course of one extremely hot day, tempers flare and buried resentments turn into declarations of war.
If you updated some of the slang and the clothes, you could make this exact same movie today. Nothing has changed since 1989 and if that doesn't make you sad, you haven't been paying attention.
This was Spike Lee's debut and he came out swinging. It fully captures a moment and uses the neighborhood itself as a character to establish place, time, and personality. It also helps that the cast is absolutely stacked to the rafters with talent. Samuel L. Jackson, Ossie Davis, Giancarlo Esposito, Miguel Sandoval, Bill Nunn, Rosie Perez, Ruby Dee, and a bunch of others you'll recognize by sight if not by name.
It's a massively important film and still depressingly relevant, as I said previously. It is not a fun watch, however. Be prepared to feel some kind of way after. Give yourself some time to process it. It's currently streaming on Peacock.
*It's not official. It's just dropped below 80 here and I'm mad about it.
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