Jungle Fever (1991): review: 6/10

A married black architect begins a relationship with his temp, a woman of Italian origins: this annoys both his wife, and his paramours family. He also leaves his job on failing to be promoted to the partnership.

The various narrative lines are slickly knitted together to illustrate the effect of racism on romantic relationships.

But the message of the film is too obvious to form the basis of a feature film , and therefore leaves one with the suspicion that it was made more to provoke debate in secondary schools than to entertain the wider public.

Do the Right Thing (1989): review: 8/10

Set in a lower class Brooklyn neighbourhood during some hot summer days, this film focusses on a pizzeria and local racial tensions, primarily between blacks and Italians, but also including hapless Hispanics and Koreans.

Though the film is well acted and lively in style, the script is pedantic in its relentless tracing of the racial issues. It presents a very unsympathetic image of blacks, who are shown variously as envious, promiscuous, sloppy, hostile, irresponsible, lazy, argumentative, drunken and destructive.