Clockers marks Spike Lee's return to the familiar terrain of Urban Reality, Present Day. His last two films, Malcolm X and Crooklyn, suffered from their respectively classical and sentimental historicity while other African-American filmmakers have ris en to prominence by portraying the decay of the contemporary inner city. John Singleton's Boyz 'n the Hood and the Hughes Brothers' Menace II Society have garnered the attention of the press and public in a way that only Lee could before. During the same period, directors like Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary have made a fortune making old film tricks look new and chic, convincing the American public that - egad! - a new era of American filmmaking had arrived. As a result, Clockers appears as a hybrid of the flourishing Black Urban Cinema and the equally blossoming school of Tarantino-ized, pseudo-progressive filmmaking. It reeks of Lee's desire to regain relevance.
Clockers, based on the 1992 novel by Richard Price, is by no means a weak film; on the contrary, it boasts strong scenes and some fine performances. Yet something is missing from the larger picture. Virtually all American film critics have loved the fi lm, explaining that its ostentatious stylistic indulgences can be excused by the power of the film's content. It is true that Clockers effectively depicts the bleak reality of the drug-infested New York City projects. But to what extent can we pardon the picture's significant flaws in order to nod our heads politely and acknowledge that, yes, this is a world that needs change?
The film begins with a much-lauded title sequence of actual photos, showing a series of images of crime-scene victims interspersed with superfluous "Police Line" yellow tape. We might expect this grisly introduction to be the beginning of a bloodfest, but the rest of the film is actually surprisingly easy to watch. It tells the story of Strike (Mekhi Phifer), a young black in the Brooklyn projects. He and his friends, under the watchful eye of the druglord Rodney (Delroy Lindo), spend their time peddli ng crack to the neighbors.
When Rodney wants Darryl, a rival junkie, dead, he turns to Strike. Yet, in a nicely nuanced sequence, Strike's path to kill Darryl diverges. He hesitates, gun in hand, in the parking lot outside the fast-food joint where Darryl works and then goes to a bar to talk to his brother, Victor (Isaiah Washington). Victor is the inverse of his younger brother: while Strike is lazy, Victor is hard-working; while the younger is a drug dealer, the elder is courteous and lives with Mom. Lee never shows the actual hit on Darryl, yet after the police, headed by Rocco Klein (Harvey Keitel), clean up the crime scene, we learn that Victor has confessed to the killing. Klein, smelling fraternal conspiracy, doesn't buy Victor's story and pursues his less noble brother. The rest of the film concentrates on the peculiarly affectionate relationship that develops between Klein and Strike, the growing tensions between Strike and his drug boss Rodney, and the bleak goings-on of the projects. Clockers then meanders to its "sur prise" ending and its weak denouement. To be fair, the film's two-hour path displays some points of true care and intelligence. The strong presence of Keitel and Lindo offset the sometimes stunted central performance of Phifer. Their portrayals of Klein and Rodney, respectively, show that none of Lee's characters is one-dimensional. Instead, the cops show signs of tenderness, the drug kingpin cares about the kids, and the resident saint hides a rage that puts Colin Ferguson to shame. As for Lee's camera, it works best during the transition sequences, when the hip-hop pounds, his characters are in motion, and the different worlds of the film are on the verge of intersection.
Yet Lee's self-conscious attempts to play with form are, at best, a distraction. He intersperses several weak, irreverent dialogue scenes and allows cinematographer Malik Sayeed to play with simply too many types of film stock. Manipulation of form in an effort to arrive at a new mode of portrayal is essential, but the overabundant and seemingly reckless experimentation in Clockers is unconvincing. Absent is the refined and focused depiction of the urban tinderbox of Do the Right Thing, Lee's 1989 mast erpiece. Back then, Lee used the old, classical, French-theatre rule of unity of time and space, giving his day-long, Bed-Stuy street a claustrophobic atmosphere that is somehow lacking in Clockers. And his later Jungle Fever, although greatly flawed, man aged to depict a world of drug use much more harrowing than that of Clockers.
Spike Lee has nevertheless made a fairly good film in Clockers, managing above all to synthesize the elaborate plot of the novel into a comprehensible movie. He still shows that he can elicit strong performances from his actors and sustain the most fun damental element in filmmaking - movement. The way his opening sequence glides across terrifying images of crime, the way his characters slither through their drug-infested world, the way his camera penetrates the streets of the projects, supported by the incessant pulse of hip-hop: these elements of motion do much more for his film than any of his burdensome experimentation can. When he keeps faith in his actors, his material, and the immense power of his street-wise camera, Spike Lee comes closest to tr ansforming the reality of his urban worlds onto the screen.
Copyright 1995, The Yale Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
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