Red Hook Summer
Variance Films | Release Date: August 10, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
14
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfAug 7, 2012
The new drama, best viewed as a church movie, is a return to the kind of corner-chat indie cinema Lee revolutionized, with an emphasis on a towering performance by The Wire's Clarke Peters as a local bishop inflamed with the Word. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazineRay GreeneJul 20, 2012
Red Hook Summer begins as a gentle character comedy and then erupts into a sudden reversal that is possibly the most powerful and disturbing sequence Lee has ever created. It's a film that makes you laugh, weep, rage and gasp, and, love it or hate it, you will definitely talk about it afterward. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineGlenn Heath Jr.Aug 6, 2012
The seamless juxtaposition of faith and pain, innocence and guilt, allows the film to transcend Spike Lee's occasional bombastic moments and become a strong examination of internal suffering. Read full review
75
The PlaylistTodd GilchristJul 28, 2012
Ultimately, Lee's clarity of vision hasn't been this sharp or unique since before "Crooklyn," and it's thrilling with Red Hook Summer to witness a return to the technique – and most of all, emotional wallop – that even today continues to give his films an enduring life as both entertainment, and enlightenment. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriAug 10, 2012
This is a film made by a wiser man who recognizes that everybody's looking for salvation in their own way. In the end, as the camera revisits the cast of broken, fallen characters, we may realize that Red Hook, as far as Spike Lee is concerned, is a state of mind. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 23, 2012
It's a scramble, marked by the unruly variety of visual strategies Lee prefers. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertAug 22, 2012
Here is Lee at his most spontaneous and sincere, but he could have used another screenplay draft, and perhaps a few more transitional scenes. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzSep 13, 2012
Although the film features a powerhouse performance by Clarke Peters as Da Good Bishop Enouch Rouse, it's saddled with a sloppy story. Read full review
60
SlateDana StevensAug 12, 2012
The result feels like a sketchbook, both in a good and bad sense; it's alive and spontaneous and surprising in some parts, underdeveloped and shapeless in others. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen HoldenAug 9, 2012
Spike Lee's messy, meandering, bluntly polemical Red Hook Summer has one crucial ingredient: a raw vitality. Read full review
60
VarietyPeter DebrugeJul 20, 2012
For those expecting Mookie's mid-career encore to signify a return to Spike Lee's roots, Red Hook Summer instead surprises -- and to some extent delights -- as yet another radically unique entry in the director's iconoclastic oeuvre. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn LevySep 6, 2012
This isn't the "Right Thing" in any sense. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubNathan RabinAug 8, 2012
The film's 121-minute running time is similarly cause for concern. Lee can be tight and focused as a gun-for-hire, but he's always viewed personal projects as irresistible invitations to self-indulgence and overreaching. Red Hook Summer is no exception. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyAug 23, 2012
In truth, the film fizzles as much as it fumes. Read full review
50
TimeRichard CorlissAug 13, 2012
In this bad-better-best movie, the Flik story is the bad, the choir singing much better and Peters the soul-stirring best. Read full review
50
IndieWireEric KohnAug 9, 2012
It's painful to watch Red Hook Summer stumble, because the man behind it has tried so hard to get his groove back. However, it's energizing in the fleeting moments when he does just that. Read full review
50
Village VoiceNick SchagerAug 7, 2012
An alternately evocative and lumbering portrait of a multifaceted community. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanAug 8, 2012
Red Hook Summer has some fantastic gospel numbers, but as drama it's a casserole that never comes together. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenSep 6, 2012
There's little drama or sense of progression in the movie until the bombshell hits, and then it just whimpers along for another half-hour until the end. Read full review
40
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottAug 31, 2012
At some point, Lee as a storyteller must step in to move things along, to dig the rudder deep into the narrative waters and steer this ship. The destination is almost irrelevant - just steer it somewhere. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth WeitzmanAug 9, 2012
We have little to hang onto once the film falls apart. Between the ongoing sermonizing and that final, sharp shock - which is gravely mishandled - we feel cowed into submission, rather than led towards enlightenment. Read full review
30
The New YorkerDavid DenbyAug 6, 2012
A clear failure, yet Lee is getting at things that mystify him, and I was touched by parts of the movie. [13 & 20 Aug. 2012, p.97]
30
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyJul 20, 2012
Lee's latest rambles through almost two hours of unfocused drama, burdened with endless didactic editorializing, before lurching out of nowhere into ugly revelations and violence. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 30, 2012
How many doubts can Lee possibly cram into one motion picture? Red Hook Summer has almost too many to count: moments that go clunk, followed by others that go clang; actors who talk as if reading their lines off cue cards or rehearsing them for the first time; and set pieces that lie there. Read full review
12
New York PostKyle SmithAug 10, 2012
Formerly a maker of bad, but at least angry, movies, Spike Lee now seems to be trying to be the world's oldest student filmmaker. Take out the rookie mistakes from Red Hook Summer, and there'd be nothing left. Read full review
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