BEFORE: I started out watching "The Score", with Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton and Marlon Brando, then after about 10 minutes, the movie started to seem very familiar. I'm almost sure I've seen that film before, so I'm crossing it off the list and moving on... I'm calling an audible and moving this film up on the list.
THE PLOT: Strike is a young city drug pusher. When a night man at a fast-food restaurant is found with four bullets in his body, Strike's older brother turns himself in as the killer. Det. Rocco Klein doesn't buy the story, however, and sets out to find the truth.
AFTER: Well, at least I haven't seen this one before, which is the whole point, right?
I'm not a big Spike Lee fan, though his work was critically bullet-proof when I went to NYU. At the time he was the biggest thing to come out of NYU film school since Scorsese, and in the eyes of my teachers, he could do no wrong. This is an adaptation of a novel by Richard Price - and I'm thinking the novel probably explained things a lot clearer than Spike's film does.
I think it's safe to assume that the central character, Strike, committed the murder - though I suppose that since we don't actually see it happen, it's open to some interpretation. I question the decision to not include the actual footage of the shooting - was that done to keep us guessing, or is it a glaring omission? Strike's brother Victor confesses, but the police find inconsistencies in his story. Honestly, I've seen bigger plot twists in just about any episode of "Law & Order".
The interesting part here is the lengths to which Det. Rocco Klein (Harvey Keitel, last seen in "Be Cool") goes to try to get the right man to confess to the murder. He discredits Strike in the eyes of his gang, and then implies to the head dealer, Rodney, that Strike has flipped on him. I suppose the implication is that most cops would take a confession and close the case, but Klein keeps putting the squeeze on Strike, until prison actually seems like his best option.
I'm having trouble seeing the big picture here, what the overall message is about life on the streets - "Do the Right Thing" had a message, albeit a simple one (Racism bad, fight the power) but here things are quite muddled. Maybe the answers aren't as simple as you first thought, Spike? And the symbolism is quite simplistic - a fish restaurant named Ahab's? Are you saying that fighting the drug problem on the streets is like Ahab chasing Moby Dick? And Harvey Keitel is Captain Ahab? There's some symbolism for the NYU professors to chew on...
I've got more drug-related films coming up in a couple of weeks - I probably should have tied this one in to "French Connection" or something...
Starring Mekhi Pfifer, Delroy Lindo (last seen in "Get Shorty"), John Turturro (last seen in "The Taking of Pelham 123"), Isaiah Washington, Keith David (last seen in "Superhero Movie"), and Michael Imperioli (last seen in "Jungle Fever").
RATING: 4 out of 10 milkshakes
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