Get on the Bus (1996)

reviewed by
Michael J. Legeros

                         Get on the Bus (1996)
                   A film review by Michael J. Legeros
                    Copyright 1996 Michael J. Legeros

(Columbia)
Directed by     Spike Lee
Written by      Reggie Rock Bythewood
Cast            Charles Dutton, Ossie Davis, Thomas Jefferson Byrd,
                Andre Braugher, Richard Belzer, Gabriel Casseus, Roger
                Guenveur Smith, Isaiah Washington, Harry J. Lennix, Hill
                Harper
MPAA Rating     "R" (presumably for profanity)
Running Time    120 minutes
Reviewed at     Six Forks Station Cinemas, Raleigh, NC (23OCT96)

==

To the credit of Spike Lee and screenwriter Reggie Rock Bythewood, GET ON THE BUS *did* get me thinking. I thought about the fifteen men bound for the Million Man March and wondered how many of them were representations of Mr. Lee. (The film student is an obvious choice, but do we see a side of Spike in the macho actor played by Andre Braugher? Or, maybe, in the mulatto police officer portrayed by Roger Guenveur Smith?) I thought about Ossie Davis and wondered how many times I'd seen him playing the wise old man. (Remember how good he was with Burt Reynolds on that TV show, some years back?) I thought about all the weighty issues riding on that bus and wondered if any of these preachers would stop sermonizing long enough to simply "be." (The one passenger who stays silent is a Nation of Islam attendee and what does that tell you?)

I thought about the great state of Tennessee and wondered if a bevy of black men would find hospitality in a Memphis redneck bar. (I bought the State Police stopping them on suspicion of drug traffic, though.) Mostly, I thought about Albert Einstein and wondered how he would explain the stretching of time inside of a movie theater. (The film runs two hours and feels like three. Wait, I remember an exciting exchange! Yes, somewhere in the second hour, when an auto dealer gets on da bus and begins offering some choice opinions about affirmative action.)

GET ON THE BUS is clearly the best movie that Spike Lee has made in a while, or, at least, since before CLOCKERS and GIRL 6. (When was the last *funny* Spike Lee movie? CROOKLYN in '94? JUNGLE FEVER in '91?) Those reading their eyelids may beg to differ, but Lee has very nearly succeeded with this rolling sermon that, like the Million Man March itself, pushes the promotion of unity among African-American males. Leave it to Lee to bring nobility to the multiplex. Now, if only he'd though to put Sandra Bullock behind the wheel of that rig... Pop quiz, Hotshot: you've got a movie about a bus, loaded with black male stereotypes and rigged to make the viewer fall asleep no matter how fast it goes. What do you do?

    Grade: B

--

Mike Legeros Raleigh, NC, USA, Earth legeros@pagesz.net (h) - legeros@unx.sas.com (w) Visit me in MOVIE HELL http://www.n-vision.com/hell/>

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