GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Allissa .Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

mjbset The acting was horrible. Worse mother of the year your how you going to dump you only child off with your father without telling him his father just died. Oh and by the way this is their FIRST meeting. What the hell is that? I cannot imagine even an engaged loving father sending his only child to someone that is a stranger to them. The was a utter disjointed mess with very little redeeming value. Even Spike cameos as Mookie from "Do the Right Thing" were flat and uninteresting I felt sorry for Clarke Peters decent effort playing Bishop Enoch. It was brave to take on the role of a child molester preacher. I don't know if Spike Lee is fighting through religious issues in older years but working through your personal issues if clumsy way without comedy is not entertaining. It is more like watch a spectacular car wreck. You know it horrible but you are fascinated and can't look away. This is how this movie struck me. If I had the misfortune of watching this at the cinema house I would have walked out in spite of "car wreck fascination". .

harley quinn The acting was horrible and the songs sucked. Also the story made no sense why did a well off mother send her vegan normal child to live with her poor God obsessed molester father who he never meet for a summer in the hood? It wasn't good It feels like they are trying to say something but the acting is so bad you can't feel it. Your better off talking to your grandmother and thinking about it your self because this is a confused moral with a movie made around it and it should be the opposite. We should be trying to understand the characters the reasons why they made there choices and the reasons why they think the way they do. The mother should of been shown at least once in the beginning to give some exposition on why she is leaving her son there or even why he never meet his grandfather and if it's because he is a molester then why did she send him there? The boy should of had more personality then just being a smart mouth that doesn't want to be there and I don't blame him. Also the scenes when they just talking, should be touching moments it just feels like they are reading out of a book. low budget or not this is horrible.

DinosaurAct86 Red Hook Summer definitely fits within Spike Lee's oeuvre, recalling the child's POV-style of storytelling used in Crooklyn and the vivid color palette employed (albeit more effectively) in Do the Right Thing. As other reviewers have no doubt already pointed out, Clarke Peters gives a superb performance, though nobody has yet mentioned Thomas Jefferson Byrd's performance, which I thought was at least on-par with his previous work if not surpassing it. Byrd's drunken prophecies shine transparent with hypocrisy, which is a major theme explored on a deeper level once the film's exterior is peeled back in the final act.Speaking of which, the final act is undoubtedly the highlight. I can't go into too much detail or I will spoil the story's impact. This sequence carries a lot of the film's weight, but viewers won't know it until it comes. The sermons are also powerful, both on the pulpit and off. It's just all too unfortunate that the lackluster acting of the two primary child stars takes away from an otherwise engaging story. And although I am a fan of much of Lee's work, I will never understand his music choices---oftentimes cheesy songs interfere with what would have been phenomenal left to natural sound... think the father-son reconciliation in the woods in Get on the Bus or some of the moments in Clockers. This is probably a matter of taste, but I can't get over it. I guess I just like the other elements of his style so much that I wish he could do better with the soundtrack (NOT the score---his scores are usually good).I guess my main point is that Red Hook Summer is worth seeing, despite the extremely low ratings I've seen in various online locales. It's just not Lee's best by any means, but not a failure either. It's just kind of... muddied.

smiley_b81 ...Clarke Peters (Freemon from HBO's "The Wire") should get an Oscar nomination for this. His performance is at once over-the-top and understated as a Brooklyn pastor who seemingly is a righteous pillar of a community that continues to wane under material violence and generational malaise. However this 'man-of-black-jesus' is hiding a terrifying secret that lifts what is at first another half-cliché movie about coming-of-age into unexpected darker and deeper territory. It makes "Red Hook Summer" into a risky, uncomfortable film and a film quite necessary in this day and age when institutions will blanket even the sickest of monsters to save their own public rep (I won't get more specific, but the contemporary story I'm alluding to concerns a man who's last name rhymes with 'Sam Clusky'). Aside from Peters, the film is worth watching for the loving touches Spike Lee brings to the setting. The music (by Bruce Hornsby), design and photography perfectly capture Brooklyn in the summertime in the same way "Crooklyn" did. Although Lee's approach, which here resembles Cassavettes at times, will upset some due to the obvious shot-on-the-fly-digital look and the after-mentioned below-par performances of the child actors.