Red Hook Summer Reviews

It's a scramble, marked by the unruly variety of visual strategies Lee prefers.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Here is Lee at his most spontaneous and sincere, but he could have used another screenplay draft, and perhaps a few more transitional scenes.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

There are no clear character arcs and no three-act dramatic structure, but the movie's messiness comes close to the rhythms of real life.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Rich, unexpected and as complex as you'd expect from a Spike Lee joint.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10

This is an illustrated lecture - a jumbled, rushed cinematic rant. The ideas are there. The story is not.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

Ultimately, Red Hook Summer is both a disappointment and yet, somehow, still completely worth seeing.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.5/10

The film manages to persevere with a heartfelt vibrancy in both its setting and characters.

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Skipping over the neighborhood like a spinning stone, Lee's rocking Red Hook looks great in Technicolor.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10

A movie that's alive and spontaneous and surprising is a rare enough thing to encounter-especially one that manages to address subjects as divisive and painful as inner-city black poverty without getting maudlin or preachy.

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...would be highly flawed but promising for a newcomer; from Spike Lee, it's downright embarrassing.

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Welcome back, Spike. It's good to see you again.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Spike Lee now seems to be trying to be the world's oldest student filmmaker. Take out the rookie mistakes from "Red Hook Summer," and there'd be nothing left.

Full Review | Original Score: 0.5/4

Peters brings a magical energy to the movie's most laggard moments, infusing a so-what drama with a must-see performance.

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From a storytelling perspective, Red Hook Summer is an absolute mess.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10

Lee grapples with a number of urgent themes, but his approaches are often either too direct (we are repeatedly pummeled by the bishop's fiery preaching) or too circuitous (the verbal and visual meanderings are sometimes valuable, and sometimes not).

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

A clear failure, yet Lee is getting at things that mystify him.

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A thought-provoking drama from Spike Lee about coming-of-age, fundamentalist Christianity, African-American discontent, and the unforgivable sin.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Spike Lee's messy, meandering, bluntly polemical "Red Hook Summer" has one crucial ingredient: a raw vitality.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

[The movie] isn't a smooth slow jam... but one doesn't go to Spike Lee pictures in order to solicit a complacent experience anyway.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Potently expresses, both aesthetically and narratively, a sense of inclusiveness and diversity.

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