CLOCKERS ***

Co-written by its director, Spike Lee, and the author Richard Price from Price's novel, "Clockers" is one of Lee's finest and most underrated films. A whodunit plot provides the backbone to one of Lee's most incisive explorations of the African-American experience in America's inner cities; lives mostly defined by drugs and crime under the eyes of a mostly white police force whose idea of 'doing the right thing' is just not pulling the trigger at the slightest provocation.

It's a stunningly photograped, (Malik Hassan Sayeed was the DP), and brilliantly acted picture, (Harvey Keitel, John Turturro and Keith David are cops while Isaiah Washington, Mekhi Phifer and Delroy Lindo are among the inhabitants of the Projects), that says as much about what it's like to live in America as any movie in the nineties. What distinguishes Lee's work, of course, is the amount of heart he pumps into it. He never reverts to sentimentality but he has a deep affection for all his characters; he even makes his villains complex and human. Largely overlooked at the time of its release, this is one Spike Lee Joint that cries out for reassessment.