Earlier in the 2010 decade, after making a series of bigger budgeted ambitious projects (which were either hits or misses), filmmaker Spike Lee decided to go back to his roots by creating a lower budgeted flick set in his hometown of Brooklyn, New York, specifically the neighborhood of Red Hook. Despite a promising comeback to the acclaimed director's early years making smaller scaled albeit emotionally powerful films in Brooklyn, the film failed to gather much notable attention due to its poor release, and it received at best decent and at worst weak reviews. After giving it a watch myself, the best way to describe it is a tonally flip flopped mess.
Set in the summer at Red Hook, Brooklyn, the movie focuses on a pampered Atlanta teen named Flik Royale who documents his time in New York housing projects with his devout grandfather, Bishop Enoch Rouse. Each individual archetype is utilized well in the first two acts, such as Enoch's faithfulness to Christianity and the contrasting cynical and care free attitude of Flik, who isn't too happy to be up in the low-class side of Red Hook. He does meet some intriguing characters like the upbeat albeit snarky Chazz Morningstar (who's sort of a frenemy to Flik), her bitterly drunken uncle Deacon Zee, and an uptight and aggressive rapper Box who loathes everything related to church and religion. Flik himself doesn't have much to offer character-wise outside of being homesick, but these characters do at least make his stay worthwhile, whether by means of benefiting him or being against him. The most prominent of the former would be Enoch, since despite not understanding much of his grandson beyond his religion, he still loves Flik and just wants to make his stay in Red Hook feel like he gained something positive.
However, as the film goes on, a sudden plot point barges in out of left field revealing that Enoch had molested a 12 year old boy named Blessing Rowe, who returns as an adult to accuse the bishop of the crime. The biggest issue with this plot, aside from it coming right out of nowhere, is that it completely contradicts the film's original intent. What was entirely presented as a tale of a care free albeit careless boy whose grandfather attempts to offer him a brand new perspective feels like it was ruined by this tonally clashing narrative that would fit better in a different movie. You could argue that it's meant to show the hypocrisies of how priests operate their organizations, but if so, then it does so by completely altering Enoch's purpose as a good spirited individual. If we're supposed to believe that Enoch was once a monster disguised as a kind soul, then that means everything this movie was fabricated on from the perspective of Flik was all for nothing. Also, the film doesn't even have a proper ending, as it kind of stops rather than giving a proper conclusion, almost like they didn't know how to end the feature.
Now in terms of other aspects, the filmmaking itself is pretty good given the film's low budget. Similar to Lee's directorial debut She's Gotta Have It, the film was shot guerrilla style, so the movie does admittedly have a nice homemade feel to itself. While the filming itself can change from shaky hand held to more static shots, the filmmakers only used them based on the point of the scene, like saving most of the still shots for quiet dramatic scenes, and most of everything else being shaky due to the movie's sporadic nature. In addition, there are moments where it shows red radiant videography from Flik's iPad that he uses to document Red Hook, which add in to Flik's point of view of the place as a fish out of water just shooting whatever comes about. Also, the performances themselves are well done in their own right, as the actors do give their all to deliver authentic and emotional characters in the feature. It also helps that the kids who played Flik and Chazz had never been in a movie before, so they actually come off as the most believable just being themselves as naive troublemaking young teens.
Unfortunately, no impressive small-scale filmmaking or genuine performances can save a bizarrely executed cluster of a feature, and as well intentioned as Red Hook Summer is, its purpose of enlightenment and gaining new points of view was ruined by a tonally inconsistent third act. Unless you're a big Spike Lee fan or are interested in the more indie low budget flicks made in New York, I'm not sure if I can recommend this film to anyone. It really goes to show that just because you want to add in twists to narratives like a boy learning more outside of his personal bubble doesn't mean it's always a good idea.
Set in the summer at Red Hook, Brooklyn, the movie focuses on a pampered Atlanta teen named Flik Royale who documents his time in New York housing projects with his devout grandfather, Bishop Enoch Rouse. Each individual archetype is utilized well in the first two acts, such as Enoch's faithfulness to Christianity and the contrasting cynical and care free attitude of Flik, who isn't too happy to be up in the low-class side of Red Hook. He does meet some intriguing characters like the upbeat albeit snarky Chazz Morningstar (who's sort of a frenemy to Flik), her bitterly drunken uncle Deacon Zee, and an uptight and aggressive rapper Box who loathes everything related to church and religion. Flik himself doesn't have much to offer character-wise outside of being homesick, but these characters do at least make his stay worthwhile, whether by means of benefiting him or being against him. The most prominent of the former would be Enoch, since despite not understanding much of his grandson beyond his religion, he still loves Flik and just wants to make his stay in Red Hook feel like he gained something positive.
However, as the film goes on, a sudden plot point barges in out of left field revealing that Enoch had molested a 12 year old boy named Blessing Rowe, who returns as an adult to accuse the bishop of the crime. The biggest issue with this plot, aside from it coming right out of nowhere, is that it completely contradicts the film's original intent. What was entirely presented as a tale of a care free albeit careless boy whose grandfather attempts to offer him a brand new perspective feels like it was ruined by this tonally clashing narrative that would fit better in a different movie. You could argue that it's meant to show the hypocrisies of how priests operate their organizations, but if so, then it does so by completely altering Enoch's purpose as a good spirited individual. If we're supposed to believe that Enoch was once a monster disguised as a kind soul, then that means everything this movie was fabricated on from the perspective of Flik was all for nothing. Also, the film doesn't even have a proper ending, as it kind of stops rather than giving a proper conclusion, almost like they didn't know how to end the feature.
Now in terms of other aspects, the filmmaking itself is pretty good given the film's low budget. Similar to Lee's directorial debut She's Gotta Have It, the film was shot guerrilla style, so the movie does admittedly have a nice homemade feel to itself. While the filming itself can change from shaky hand held to more static shots, the filmmakers only used them based on the point of the scene, like saving most of the still shots for quiet dramatic scenes, and most of everything else being shaky due to the movie's sporadic nature. In addition, there are moments where it shows red radiant videography from Flik's iPad that he uses to document Red Hook, which add in to Flik's point of view of the place as a fish out of water just shooting whatever comes about. Also, the performances themselves are well done in their own right, as the actors do give their all to deliver authentic and emotional characters in the feature. It also helps that the kids who played Flik and Chazz had never been in a movie before, so they actually come off as the most believable just being themselves as naive troublemaking young teens.
Unfortunately, no impressive small-scale filmmaking or genuine performances can save a bizarrely executed cluster of a feature, and as well intentioned as Red Hook Summer is, its purpose of enlightenment and gaining new points of view was ruined by a tonally inconsistent third act. Unless you're a big Spike Lee fan or are interested in the more indie low budget flicks made in New York, I'm not sure if I can recommend this film to anyone. It really goes to show that just because you want to add in twists to narratives like a boy learning more outside of his personal bubble doesn't mean it's always a good idea.