At two hours in duration Do the Right Thing could have very well focused on that pizza shop and the folks attempting to boycott it for entire feature. Luckily, director Spike Lee was smart enough to write in a bevy of supplemental plot points and characters to occupy some of the time. The film still would have benefited from a bit of editing – Lee really likes long musical numbers.

In mentioning music, Radio Rahemm, as played by Bill Nunn, while not a huge role ostensibly functions as the catalyst for the film’s conclusion.

Toting around a boom box and blasting Public Enemy throughout the entire film, Radio Raheem is able to get into a few verbal altercations. His reluctance to turn of his music results in being entwined with Sal debating who has the right to do what within the confines of his pizzeria.

This, though, is the stuff that makes Lee a dedicated writer, artist and director.

There’re a myriad view points to take. Sal obviously has a point about the establishment being his own. There are rules of society, but depending upon where one is, those rules might be augmented by whoever runs the joint.

Not agreeing or disagreeing with that Radio Raheem tells (screams at?) Sal about the music defining him as a person. And for the disaffected, Public Enemy can certainly do that. It’s also true that Radio Raheem lives in the neighborhood while Sal commutes in to operate a business bolstered by money from the black community.

Both characters are right and both characters are wrong. Any good compromise results in both parties being disappointed by something. But Radio Raheem turns off his boom box, gets a slice and exits.

Mookie’s in a precarious place, though. At once a part of the neighborhood and Sal’s Pizzaria, Mookie needs to provide for his child, which in and of itself could be an entire film. A few times, Lee’s character functions to smooth out problems that arise between pizzeria workers and neighborhood guys. But by the films conclusion, the character’s so fed up that he instigates a riot. Of course, the threat of violence – already fully realized in the murder of Radio Raheem at the hands of police – was mounting with the mass of people congregated around the pizza shop, but Lee’s character changed the game.

Even as Lee’s final act in the film decries a modicum of the feature’s overall intent, the subsequent quotes, which pop up on the screen just prior to the credits, serve to explain what all of this just meant since we’re clearly not as smart as Ebert.