Black architect Flipper Purify is waking the neighbors with a white woman, Angie Tucci. Nothing special about that; this is the `90s. What makes it special is Angie`s his secretary, her real boyfriend is a wet noodle, Flipper`s married to an angry mulatto, his brother`s a staggering crack fiend, his father is a preacher and his best friend can`t keep a secret. Can`t you just smell the trouble brewing?
Let me get the good points of ”Jungle Fever” out of the way. The funniest scenes are where people speak out on what is bothering them.
Some scenes are real arty. The festering, slimy drug addicts are in a crackhouse that outfesters them all. But in a strange way it`s graceful. That`s art in motion. Arty, yes, but that`s just one scene. To make the whole movie good, the scenes have to be strung together with a good plot. These scenes weren`t strung; they were hung.
This is a good movie except for one shrunken-size detail: no ending. If I could come up with an ending that could tie up all of ”Jungle Fever`s”
frayed ends, I`d make my own movies. Normal movies go straight from problem to solution. This one has a problem, skips to someone else`s problem, makes up another problem, etc., for more than two hours.
Considering the movie isn`t that great, with or without him acting, why should director Spike Lee cry over not winning any awards? (STAR)(STAR) 1/2
