Director Spike Lee is famous for making films pointing out racism. In many of films, such "Do The Right Thing," most of the white people are all brutal racists. In this movie, interracial marriage is the subject, with racism once again being the entire issue.

What Lee does, however, is once again demonstrate his bigotry against Christianity. It's amazing the double standards that exist in the film world. If Lee or anyone else ever produced this kind of bias against another group he would be vilified, but Christians? Hey, it's "open season" on them.

Ossie Davis, a reverend in this film, shoots his son and then puts the smoldering gun down on top of his Bible. They zoom in on that for another closeup just in case you missed it. Hey, folks, here's another Bible reader and look what he''s like! Lee does this sort of thing in just about every movie he makes.

He shows the same hatred when dealing with race relations. Who could argue with portraying racism as an evil thing? However, Lee perpetuates it in this film as he has in his other films. His obvious bitterness toward white people doesn't help the situation. It only adds fuel to the fire.

Hey, Spike: start "doing the right thing" and leave your prejudices in the closet. Better yet, "get over it."

This is too bad because the subject matter could have made for a thought- provoking film if it had been done with objectivity and intelligence.

Jungle Fever has a star packed cast that delivers marvelous performances. Unfortunately, they are wasted on Lee's loosey goosey directing.

Jungle Fever opens with Spike Lee's favorite character of all time, New York. After a plethora of images of street signs, subways, Harlem, and the words "Spike Lee" we open on a slow motion shot of a newspaper flying through the air...which seems to have no other significance than presenting the words "The New York Times"! After which we see a sex scene with Flipper played by Wesley Snipes loudly making love with his black wife. Why mention black? Because this is a movie about race, and since Jungle Fever is not gonna put in the effort to tactfully express its theme neither will I.

Flipper is an upper-middle class architect working at a firm controlled by two white men. Although putting it in pen and paper that he requests a black secretary instead he is given a young Italian American woman named Angie. Angie lives at home providing the motherly stand in for her very Italian father and brothers. Flipper and Angie, never having been intimate with anyone outside their race (except for Flipper's half Caucasian wife) work late into the evenings and eventually build an attraction to each other which Spike Lee calls "Jungle Fever". Thus, their interracial affair begins causing tension to build and explode between a multitude of characters.

In addition Flipper also has a crack head brother played by Samuel L Jackson who runs around with his crackhead girlfriend played by Halle Berry looking to score cash from all his bloodlines including his poor mother who can't help but give into her 1st son when he does a little dance.

The film's time is split between an assortment of characters who make up a collection of stories on interracial relationships and the ethnic hardships of New York Blacks and Italians.

To give an example of how over handed and disjointed the racism is portrayed there is a scene where Flipper and Angie are pretend boxing. Flipper grabs Angie pinning her onto a car when Police officers show up forcing Flipper in a submissive position shoving a gun into his face. Obviously they had misread the situation but with Flipper screaming "I'm gonna kill you!" with his hands on her neck its understandable why the officers jumped to that conclusion. There's also a scene where Angie's father beats her for having relations with a "nigger". Perhaps it's the age of the film and people back then needed racism to be spelled out in a very overt and sensational manner.

Jungle Fever is without a center jumping all over the place with extremely poor editing. The editor Samuel Pollard has edited mainly documentaries since, which is fantastic. The further he stays away from narratives the better. I'm trying to figure out how these scenes possibly transitioned into one another in script. I know that Lee likes to do harsh transitions but this film is just ridiculous. Jungle Fever is littered with ueven pacing and scenes that lose their punch because people need to walk in and out of frame. Example: Flipper and Angie are being ignored at a restruant because they're interracial then at the end of the scene when Queen Latifah, playing the waitress, walks off there's a 3 second cutaway where two bystanders say "She's White!?" "Mhmm Hmm"

Jungle Fever is a film that indulgently satisfies itself. You feel ever bit of Lee's directorial manipulation while be beats you over the head with dialogue after dialogue about people's opinion on race & society. In fact there is a four minute scene of 5-6 black women just talking in a room about how about how they are disenfranchised. What is the point of a camera if you're just going to film taking heads?

The camera angles and techniques in this film are all over the place in this film. In a scene where Flipper is asking for partner the camera just spins around them for about 3 minutes. I'm sure it was hard technique to film but why do these obtrusive techniques show up randomly throughout the film. I'm wondering if Lee showed up on set and rolled a dice every day. "OH look It's a 3, that means today I wanna put me and Wesley on a dolly and we are just gonna do this scene like we're drifting like ghosts". Strange camera techniques like these make me believe that Spike Lee wanted to make an experimental film.

On the plus note all the actors are amazing and Spike Lee has a great eye for talent. Samuel Jackson STEALS this movie! Every scene with Jackson is a treasure and I'm sure when he's given his life time achievement award and there showing clips of his work, Jungle Fever will be contained in that reel.

This movie is fun to watch to watch for the acting but I would recommend a more contemporary film such as "Everday People" [2004] if you wanted to see a New York film dealing with race.

Flipper Purify (Wesley Snipes) is a black architect with growing recognition, aiming at becoming partner at his current firm. Married with child his wife Drew (Lonette McKee) and daughter Vera (Veronica Webb) are seemingly the apple of his eye. When given an assisrant of Italian roots, Angie Tucci (Annabella Sciorra),Flipper initially objects on racial grounds, opting for a black-skinned subordinate. These reservations soon come to pass, when working nights together they soon uncover a growing fascination with each other, despite their differing skin colours. This soon turns into a romance, which crosses racial boundaries, causing a stir in both neighbourhoods and making them outcasts from their families...

American film in general still has racial issues. Seeing a mixed couple on screen is a strangely rare occurrence, despite an increase in Afroamerican actors on the front-line. Even when employed the norm is having non-mixed couples, as if to avoid inciting unpopular furore among both sides of the divide. The exceptions to the norm are few and far between, surprisingly most often introduced by non-American directors. Even less widespread is such mixed couples not being the core of the story told - a notable exception is "Things We Lost In the Fire" by Dane Susanne Bier, where Halle Berry and David Duchovny create a loving couple with race issues never even implied.

This speaks volume why "Jungle Fever" and the issues touched remain poignantly important till this day - the concept of mixed race pairs is so innerly counter-cultural to the American society at large, even more so than in Europe or light years behind the formerly racial South Africa. Spike Lee therefore located a subject mine for a classic movie, which would stay in memory for its breakthrough content. However Spike Lee wouldn't be himself, if he hadn't resorted to some tricks of trade, flashing audiences with subplots, which do nothing but distort the core theme (Flipper's flailing career or an absolutely detrimental story about his brother the narcomaniac). Meanwhile the racial issues themselves get dragged down with overly preachy monologues or dialogues, finally delivering little in terms of a satisfying conclusion. Seemingly afraid of going the mile Spike Lee finally pulls up and offers a screeching happy ending, but somewhere within this feverish mixed racial love the context becomes diluted. Already permeating with an unmistakable style, patchy story lines and venturing camera shots, Spike Lee's trademarks came to fruition, but unfortunately with a movie being a far cry from "Do the Right Thing" or "The 25th Hour", proving to be a director renowned for a very uneven film career.