Get On The Bus is a simple, plain road-trip movie that doubles as yet another sermon from Spike Lee. A cross-section of black America charter a bus from L.A. to Washington for the 1995 Million Man March. On board there's a gay couple, a loud-mouth prick actor who gives everyone a hard time, a son shackled to his dad by court order, a light-skinned cop, a reformed gang-banger, a film student taping the trip, Ossie Davis as an old-timer used and spat-out by the white man, and an assortment of other personalities. Along the way, they fight, they bond, and Spike gets as many mouthpieces as he wants to repeatedly tackle the same old subjects. Here, Spike is trying to show the diversity of black America by giving everyone different views, but his black take on The Symposium feels inorganic, cringingly melodramatic, the interactions are...nobody interacts that way, not even in plays! This adds little that's fresh to his filmography, and does little to draw him out of the rut most of his career's been mired in (I love the guy, but many of his works are redundant, and I know these issues mean a lot to him, but his delivery on this one is especially stale). Still, I didn't hate the movie. At best, it's one of his more 'ok' efforts.
Review of Get on the Bus
