I was glad to see on the special edition DVD of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing to see how he answered the question asked at Cannes as to why there weren't drugs portrayed in the film; his answer, simply, was that there wasn't enough space dramatically, that it would be too much to fit drugs into a story already loaded with racism in a small neighborhood. But, as he followed, he could use what it means to have drugs in an urban environment, and what it does to the people, and have that as a stand-alone movie. He followed this up, in part, with the Samuel L. Jackson storyline in Jungle Fever, and thanks to Richard Price's novel and original script, he has here what might be his answer to that question. It's not a very great movie, perhaps, because by this time Spike Lee has so much invested in the style of his cinematic theatrics, of how the nature of the camera itself related to those of the characters, that it comes close to going over substance. But it's is a worthy attempt at putting into context, via the conventions of genre going back to the 40s, as to what makes or breaks the ties between drug dealers and their workers, and how the workers (or 'Clockers' as per the title of the movie) go about their business in the streets.

Clockers has a main plot that pushes along, as the murder by multiple gun-shots of a Darryl, black fast-food worker, who was also apart of the crew of Rodney (Delroy Lindo),call into question who might have done it. At first, it seems pretty open and shut, as Victor (Isaiah Washington) comes forth and admits he did it in self-defense. Rocco Klein (Harvey Keitel) doesn't buy it, seems too easy, so he asks around, digs deeper, and sees that his brother, Strike (Mekhi Pfeifer) seems to be much more of the guilty party, by way of how he handles himself in the streets, his repore with Rodney, and as having more motive to kill Darryl. It's through this that Lee then branches it out to make it as much as character as about plot, where the ties between certain characters, like Strike and Tyrone, a pre-teen who looks up to Strike like a surrogate father, are mostly defined by how the neighborhood works out in the open. The clockers are bunch of would-be gang-bangers who talk a lot of talk, but haven't walked nearly as much as Earle, best friend of Rodney's and psychopathic murder, or Rodney himself, who has that veneer of being like the one you can trust the most- half surrogate father as well and half good cop/bad cop boss- until he gets crossed.

Although Price's material, which comes through with the energy and occasional wit, is noticeable throughout, it's really Spike Lee as director and many of the actors who make this a consistently watchable movie. Lee is never one to be too subtle with the camera, and he has variations with how he deals with the material to make it very observant but also subjective. Early on, for example, we see the clockers making their deals in the park in long-shot, shaky, as if Lee's filming it far away for a reality TV show. But then we also see the 360 degree camera moves as Klein questions Strike. There's many camera moves that are practically trademark Lee shots, especially with the lighting, as Klein questions Tyrone, or when we see a flashback to Victor having to deal with some clockers. It's all very flamboyant and meant to call attention to the material, and aside from a few unneeded music choices (it's the only time you'll hear Seal in a drug dealer crime movie),he's on top of things. Meanwhile, the performances are all top-notch, usually, as Keitel and particularly Lindo play their characters so well by pretty much being how we think the actors 'really' are, even though they're not. Pfeifer has a little trickier a time with his performance, because he usually is on a very similar note: I didn't do nothing, is his usual beat. His character also has the intriguing qualities that mark him as something of an outsider however in he might be: his stomach virus, which is never resolved but always looming over him, and his love of electric train-sets.

And all the while, Clockers succeeds in presenting a time and place where there should be little to no hope, and it makes the cops and criminals both pretty well-rounded when compared to other genre films. The cops are meant to be the good guys, but there's also a steady conflict between Klein and his partner: why should Klein care so much as to who did it or why (Strike also asks this question towards the end, in one of the best scenes in the film)? And Strike and Rodney are not cut-outs from black exploitation flicks, but with more of a push and pull tie that is always a threat, never a comfort. There are little details that help make Lee's film interesting when it veers into being like a television serial; the white yuppies who get entangled in the case; the over-protective but very smart cop (Keith David, always a pro) who also tries to play surrogate father to Tyrone, albeit without the same care, however negative, as Strike has; the brief shots of the drug addicts with their habits on display, as we only need to see it for less than a minute to get the nature of the bottom of the food chain, which is total despair. Lee's film, however, isn't really disparaging as it has moments of hope, yet a hope meant to be in understanding that there's no easy way out of all of this.

In this complicated tale of the pressures on Mekhi Phifer in the Brooklyn projects, director Spike Lee captures the values and the iconography of the African-American community well, as he usually does. You get a genuine sense of the simmering anger, the shifting allegiances, and the small reward system of the social world these pathetic people live in.

Pfifer is the central figure and he sweats a lot. No brighter or better than he should be, he's pressured from one side into dealing cocaine by local mogul Delroy Lindo. On the other side, he's pushed by the manipulative but well-intentioned detectives Harvey Keitel and Stanley Turturro. Pfifer's handsome and upright brother is under arrest for murder but Keitel believes that Pfifer is the culprit. Pfifer's brother is simply too good, too compliant, to have done the deed.

Nice ambiguity. Lee convincingly nails the diversity and solidarity of the community. It's like John Ford in the ghetto. Pfifer may be innocent of the crime of which Keitel is convinced he's guilty but he also deals dope. Keitel, for all his ploying the system, is determined to bring the guilty party to justice, though he may play a little dirty in getting the job done. And when he finds out that he's been wrong about who committed the murder, he does what such a person would do in real life. He hides his guilt behind a tirade of threats.

In a way, it's an improvement over Spike Lee's "Do The Right Thing." It doesn't turn all the cops into heavies. And it doesn't end with an ominous quote from Malcolm X.

The weakness of the film lies in Lee's allowing conversations to go on for too long. Pfifer gets a lot of screen time and when he's not chewing out his young brother (who will save his life) he's whining about his innocence. The exchanges, sometimes rising to shouts, go on too long and become tiring.

It's a devalued life these people lead. They wear clothes and they groom themselves in ways that appeal only to those in their immediate and limited social worlds. I'm beginning to develop an idea. The more you resemble someone who is upper class and British, the more your social worth. The farther removed you are from this model, the lower your status. If you could take Pfifer, dress him in riding clothes and teach him to play polo, and have him say "eck-tually" instead of "aks," and have him grow some hair on his shaved and shiny skull, he might not be thought guilty of anything except being too polite.

Young drug pushers in the projects of Brooklyn live hard dangerous lives, trapped between their drug bosses and the detectives out to stop them.

When watching this film, knowing it first went through the hands of Martin Scorsese, one cannot help but wonder how Spike Lee does it different than Scorsese would. The obvious answer is that Lee is able to provide an authenticity that Scorsese may not have. While it is not true that only black men can tell the stories of other black men, but few handle the material like Lee does. Scorsese would likely have shifted the emphasis to Rocco Klein, the white cop.

And that would have worked, as well. Klein (played by Harvey Keitel) is the co-protagonist, as his search for the killer is an important plot point. Roger Ebert says, "He is a weary professional who acts as a witness to death. There is a tendency in his business not to linger too long over the death of one young drug dealer, but he cannot get stubborn questions out of his mind." Keitel does a fine job in this role, and it is nice to see him take his gritty gangster image and put a spin on it towards law enforcement.