Jungle Fever (1991)

These race-relations films always make me feel a little awkward, given that I live in a whiter city than most in a predominately-white country. I don't hear racial epithets or see racially-motivated violence. Miscegenation isn't even on my radar, so the violent reaction of the characters in Jungle Fever seems completely bizarre. It's terrible, of course, that Flipper (Wesley Snipes) is cheating on his wife, but irrelevant that it's with the Italian-American Angie (Annabella Sciorra).

As with most Spike Lee films, this story is just one segment of a vivid social tapestry. Angie lives at home with her father (Frank Vincent) and brothers (David Dundara, Michael Imperioli). She dates neighbourhood kid Paulie (John Turturro), whose father and customers themselves intrude on the periphery. Flipper has a wife and child, a best friend (Spike Lee), a crack-head brother (Samuel L. Jackson), ex-pastor father ("The Good Reverend Doctor Purify", Ossie Davis) and worried mother (Ruby Dee). There are others.

It's the chewy racist centre that's hard to swallow. Flipper's wife and friends complain about white women trying to steal their men. The white men say crude things about black girls; Angie's family react particularly poorly. It's not until the last fifteen minutes that they show concern for much at all besides colour.

That is probably the point -- that, ultimately, there are other concerns -- but it's irritating to sit through an hour and a half of the penultimate clumsiness before this truth is revealed. It doesn't help that Snipes has no charisma whatsoever, or that the costumes are horribly outdated, or that Lee wants hideous cinematographic tricks (gliding instead of walking, soft-focused love scenes).

Maybe it'd be worth the irritation if the central issue felt more real, but to me it feels like much ado about nothing.