| Get on the Bus Spike Lee's latest is something of a rarity, not least because Lee shot the whole thing with independent backing for just $2.4m. The reduced circumstances show and it's all the better for that: febrile, grainy and rough-edged, it's also one of the most politically engaged American movies you are likely to see this decade. Commemorating Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March, a gigantic ralley of black American men, less than two years after the fact, Lee's fictional tribute describes a sort of National Express coach journey from Los Angeles to Washington for said ralley. The passenger list includes a reformed gangster turned Muslim, a gay couple, a father and petty criminal son, a cop and a film student (whose erratic video footage nicely echoes Elliot Davis' raggedly virtuoso |
| super-16 mm camera work). If the slightly contrived cross-section of society is a little too convenient, strong performances and Reggie Rock Blythewood's engaging script provide the necessary verisimilitude. The tone may be unashamedly celebratory, but Lee and Blythewood don't fight shy of the controversies surrounding the march, bringing in characters female and Jewish to take issue with Farrakhan's dubiously exclusionary politics. Ultimately, what's delivered is a humane, bristlingly intelligent and richly complex spectrum of debate. Iced off (in the cake rather than the gangsta sense) with some wry humour and a few seamlessly inserted musical sequences, the whole is a delectable and exceptional treat. |