1995: Clockers

Clockers (Spike Lee, 1995) 8/10

You are selling your own people death." (Iris Jeeter)

Perched upon a series of benches inside Brooklyn's Nelson Mandela Houses, a group of young African-American men jovially extol and critique the virtues of their favourite hip-hop stars amongst one another. After a few minutes, the banter soon reaches a juncture, as the principal reality of their gathering comes to the forefront.

This is no mere afternoon cultural conversation, but rather a brief pause in the daily activities of a brand of low-end drug dealers known as "clockers." Within a matter of seconds, the return to illicit business practices and an ensuing police raid offers a dark contrast to the previously warm and jocular exchanges. Beginning with its gruesome opening shots of real-life photographic evidence of murdered African-American victims of crime, Spike Lee's Clockers is a film dedicated to investigating the degeneration of the inner-city projects, whilst offering didactic solutions and alternative images.

Filmed in the format of a classic "police procedural," Lee's film centers on the character of Rodney aka "Strike" (Mekhi Phifer). With his fondness for electric trains and chocolate milk and his obtrusive chronic stomach ailments, "Strike" does not fit the stereotypical depiction of an urban hoodlum. Rather than being cold and calculated, he is jittery and lonely. Living in a spacious apartment outside of the projects filled with a massive model train collection, "Strike" has managed to present an image to his landlord of a clean-cut citizen untainted by the world of narcotics and criminal activity.

But in his relationship with Rodney, a local drug kingpin (Delroy Lindo), "Strike"'s links to the projects are rehabilitated. Isolated from his family both emotionally and physically, "Strike"'s relationship to the projects is strictly vocational, as it serves as a base for his operations as a "clocker." Desperate to impress his mentor, "Strike" agrees to kill a rival named Darryl outside a local fast food restaurant. Before completing the deed, "Strike" meets his estranged, respectable brother Victor (Isaiah Washington) at a bar. In contrast to "Strike," Victor has eschewed drug dealing, in favour of working two menial jobs in order to offer his children a positive counter-identity and to eventually relocate his family outside of the projects.

Arriving upon the scene of Darryl's death, local homicide investigators Rocco (Harvey Keitel) and Larry (John Turturro) begin to scour the projects for his assassin. Yet, they are surprised when the upstanding Victor turns himself into the police claiming he shot Darryl in self-defence. Unconvinced by Victor's "confession," the police begin to believe his younger brother "Strike" is Darryl's real murderer and thus begin to gather clues to support the overwhelming evidence that appears to link "Strike" to the crime. By removing footage detailing Darryl's murder, Lee's film not only adds a degree of mystery into the proceedings, but also expands on the film's layered investigation of the theme of perception.

In Clockers numerous stereotypical representations are shifted, whilst others are critiqued through Lee's keen social lens. Based on their personalities, not only does "Strike" appear an unlikely dealer, but his brother seems to be an improbable killer due to their respective interests and tendencies. Whilst profiling their background, Keitel's Rocco in particular has difficulty moving beyond the possibility that Victor could commit a crime, in contrast to his brother who fits the description through his criminal activities and relationships. Yet, in demonstrating these options, Spike Lee smartly attempts to break away from traditional representations by emphasizing the complexities and nuances of the urban African-American experience, whilst continually stressing the poisonous effects of narcotics and crime in African-American communities.

For example, in the character of Errol (Thomas Jefferson Byrd), Lee offers an astute, untraditional representation of a drug-addled criminal. Born to a preacher and training to be an accountant, Lee posits Errol as a tragic example of those individuals who abandoned a life of principles and virtues through drug addiction or a lust for the glamour associated with "gangster" lifestyles propagated through cultural vehicles such as film and music. In characters such as Victor, a neighbourhood doting named mother Iris (Regina Taylor) and local police officer Andre (Keith David), Lee offers positive "other" figures in the projects; counter-identities who have rejected the lust of money and power associated with drug dealing in favour of being hard-working, beneficial members of society, who yearn to change their communities from within.

Iris in particular becomes an important figure in the film through her son Tyrone (Peewee Love). Attracted by the temptation of money and power, Tyrone is continually found on the periphery of where the "clockers" reside, much to the distain of his mother Iris. Whilst Iris wants her intelligent son to become educated, he like many others, is offered a glamorous lifestyle addressed in a seductive language by neighbourhood kingpin Rodney and "Strike."

Centering his operations outside his legitimate hardware store, Rodney recruits children through promises of money and gifts. "Strike" continues this tradition by purchasing violent video games and brand-name clothing for Tyrone, who begins to mimic his mode of speech, dress and interests. Iris' admonishment of this culture and refusal to accept her son's eventual succumbing to these influences resonates in some of the film's most powerful moments.

Although the film's white detectives Rocco and Larry repeatedly attempt to inject a sense of guilt into "Strike" and Rodney, it is the loud-voiced condemnation of this cycle of violence and death by African-American protagonists such as Iris and Andre, which carry much of the director's own emotional weight. Lee's film thus emerges as a rallying cry for urban African-Americans to extricate "black-on-black" violence through drug-dealing, murder and criminal activity from their communities and in turn create proud neighbourhoods built on interconnectedness, education and a spirit of collective collaboration.

In doing so, Clockers emerges as a gritty portrayal of urban African-American life and an anti-Blaxploitation film. In Clockers the "ghetto" experience is deconstructed into a world filled with both positive and negative archetypes; demonstrating both an environment bedeviled by poverty and other socio-economic ills, but teeming with possibilities for a brighter future helmed by leaders and mentors who are unwilling to accept defeat, stereotypes or excuses.

* Clockers is available on DVD through Universal Home Video

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque