Now FASTing: Spike Lee's RED HOOK SUMMER, Stirring Up Ashes

Director Spike Lee's newest film, Highest 2 Lowest, will open in movie theaters Friday, August 15, ahead of its streaming debut on Apple TV+ on September 5.

No doubt drawing inspiration both from King's Ransom, a crime novel by Evan Hunter (published in 1959 under his pen name Ed McBain), and Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (now streaming on the Criterion Channel and also HBO Max), it is Spike Lee's third new version of another film.

Neither of Lee's previous remakes, Oldboy (2013) and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014), the latter inspired by Ganja and Hess, were particularly memorable, if I recall correctly, yet neither are available on streaming services to which I subscribe at the moment, so I can't double-check my memories. What is available, however, is one that brought back some happy memories for me.

Red Hook Summer (2012)
Now FASTing on Tubi TV. It is also now streaming on Mubi.

The sixth entry in Spike Lee's so-called Brooklyn Chronicles was cooked up by the filmmaker and his friend/co-writer James McBride one morning. Self-financed and shot on DV camera very quickly, the film brought back memories from my own early adult years in Brooklyn, especially all the hot summers in the Flatbush neighborhood.

Our own Christopher Bourne wrote a fabulous review that deserves to be revisited. I'll quote one paragraph:

"I would love to be able to report that Red Hook Summer equals, or even comes close to, such superior entries in Spike Lee's filmography as Do the Right Thing, Crooklyn, 25th Hour, or even the underrated He Got Game, but alas, I cannot do so. Lee's latest is a frustratingly uneven, chaotically messy film. The speechifying and didacticism of the screenplay (co-written by Lee and James McBride), admittedly a hallmark of most Spike Lee films, here bury what could have been a great film underneath overlong and awkwardly constructed material. While the film does effectively convey the anger and quiet desperation of the lives of many of its characters, its many aesthetic and technical weaknesses severely blunt its artistic impact."

Thirteen years later, watching the film for the first time, with periodic advertising breaks, I found myself agreeing with what Mr. Bourne wrote, especially with his identification of the elements that hold the film back. Yet, as he also wrote:

"And yet, I can't quite write off Red Hook Summer as a total failure, if only because of the great turns by Peters and Byrd, as well as some faint flashes of the Spike Lee brilliance of old." I must say that Clarke Peters is mesmerizing whenever he preaches in his church; even in his quieter moments, he commands attention.

One more actor who makes it worth watching: Colman Domingo, who is absolutely spellbinding in a third-act scene that turns everything upside down.

Now FASTing celebrates independent and international genre films and television shows that are newly available on legal FAST (Free Ad-supported Streaming Television) services.

Christopher Bourne contributed to this story.