Film Review: Red Hook Summer

Spike Lee’s latest, Red Hook Summer, has been touted as his cinematic return to his beloved borough of Brooklyn, part of a series of films that includes Do The Right Thing, Crooklyn, and Clockers. And it is; specifically, the film takes place in the titular Red Hook neighborhood, an area of distinct contradictions – a gentrified waterfront village with a beautiful view of lower Manhattan that also houses some pretty tough projects and a longstanding Latin American food truck gathering (albeit one that has been thoroughly embraced by Brooklyn’s new wave). The story centers on Flik (Jules Brown), a teenager who is reluctantly deposited by his mother in the Red Hook projects to spend a summer with his preacher grandfather, Bishop Enoch (Clarke Peters). What seems like the perfect locale and setup for a vibrant, charming Spike Lee joint is in fact a film in shambles.

Aside from Peters, the acting is horribly stagey and wooden, the editing choppy and messy, the story disjointed and overwrought, and, most egregiously, the film is about 30 to 40 minutes too long. Editing or removing some of the many scenes of Enoch preaching at the local church could have rectified this last error. These vignettes do bring a sense of realism to the story, an attempt to convey what it’s like inside an African American church basement in the middle of a sweaty New York City summer. But these scenes go on and on. Just when the film reaches the point of unbearable tedium, however, a major plot twist arrives – no spoilers here, so no mention of who or what it involves. But it feels like a forced attempt at reviving the film’s steadily flagging energy that would have worked better 30 minutes earlier.

It’s a shame because Red Hook Summer actually starts out promisingly enough. Perhaps it’s the anticipation of a new, smaller-scale film from Lee, who has proven himself at times to be a cinematic master, or perhaps it’s actually the promising opening scenes. Flik arrives in Red Hook with his mother and TK (Jonathan Batiste), who is also the church’s organist. He sports a “fro-hawk,” as his new friend, Chazz (Toni Lysaith, particularly bad in this role), refers to his hairstyle, and seems to view the world entirely through his iPad screen. When he arrives at his grandfather’s apartment, a well-ordered oasis fixated upon Jesus in the midst of a world of gangs and drug dealing, it’s like arriving in a foreign country. This is nothing like his middle-class, suburban Atlanta home, and he cringes at the smell of urine in the elevator and marvels at his grandfather’s Jesus fish. After all, he’s a vegan and rides a skateboard; he has no patience for church basements and Grandpa’s old-fashioned food.

By the film’s end, one has to wonder exactly what Flik’s mother was thinking leaving her son there in the first place. And Lee doesn’t really bother to explain this glaring question, choosing instead to offer up some clichéd takes on gentrification and appear in a cameo as Do The Right Thing’s beloved Mookie. It’s a funny moment, seeing the graying Lee in shorts carrying a pizza box, but it’s not enough. The aforementioned plot twist is shocking and unexpected, and the most interesting moments of the film come in its aftermath, but Lee doesn’t go far enough in explaining its fallout. Red Hook Summer is such a failure because it’s apparent just what this film could have been with a little more restraint and a lot more attention to detail.