I hadn’t watched a “Spike Lee Joint” in a few years, and the
drama “Red Hook Summer” (2012, from Variance and Image Entertainment) seems
like the most intimate look inside the African-American community ever, this
time in “The Hook”, the Red Hook area of lower Brooklyn. This film has no connection to the thriller
by that name that I reviewed here June 28.
The area has attracted interest because it was heavily flooded by
Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, not too long after this film was shot.
Flik Royale (Jules Borwn) arrives in Brooklyn (from Atlanta) to spend the summer with his
pastor grandfather Lourdes (Limary Agosto), who leads the “Lil’l Peace of
Heaven Baptist Church” (several choir members are in the film). Flik expects a summer of playground baseball
and other recreation, but Lourdes wants him to get some old time religion. Flik is already vegan (although that diet
allows potato chips) and resists Lourdes’s ironically southern diet of
including fried chicken.
The film has a lot of church and old time gospel music in
the first hour, reminding one of the 1982 classic “Say Amen, Somebody.” (Somehow, I’m reminded of the fact that
Lynchburg VA has named one of its expressways after the late Jerry
Falwell.) Flik befriends a mischievous girl
in the congregation. Gradually, tension
builds, and a dirty secret in Lourdes’s past comes out into the open. I don’t think it’s giving away too much to
say that it has to do with abuse of of a child, and of a congregation’s need to
pay “love money” to get a pastor to go away.
Lourdes, however, thinks he has redeemed himself.
The official site is here. Spike still uses his “40 Acres and a Mule”
trademark for his productions.
The film can be rented “legally” from YouTube for
$3.99. I watched in on regular rental
DVD (technically quite sharp); it’s available on Netflix Instant play to
subscribers, too. It’s long (a little over
two hours).
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