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.
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.