I can’t help it. I can’t help but admire Lee’s big audacious swings regardless of if they hit the ball or not. The attempt alone is fascinating. I admire how the film harkens back to the love of this neighborhood like Do The Right Thing, and the bittersweet sentimentality coming of age Crooklyn, only to pull the rug out from underneath you. It settles you into this comfort, this vibe, that when the third act changes everything you’re unmoored. I admire the untrained kid actors, who I can’t decide if their unpolished nature is endearing and real or cringingly distracting from scene to scene. I admire the homey warm colors that melt into the horizon of most of the film only to be contrasted with the claustrophobic, stuffed confession, the man so flushed and blotchy he looks like he’s living a fever dream. I admire there’s no easy answers and the audacity to not really offer any -answers at all.

Most of all, of course, I admire Peters and Domingo. Peters is the glue that holds this film together, so entertaining and true to the quintessential black preacher, for good and bad. The high minded earnestness, the condescending compassion, the love from atop a pedestal. It all clicks in that big third act scene, where everything is written on Peters’ face. And Domingo is his equal, simmering with rage and a wounded betrayal and grief that’s ached decades. He makes every second of his limited screentime count, and that classic dolly shot works so well here. Focused on Domingo’s face, the physical propulsion of his character matching the rising emotion. He’s like a bullet in slow motion, and what he has to say is as devastating to Peters and his church as Peters’ head getting blown off would be. The revelation recontextualizes everything about Peters’ character. His speeches about New York having everything you need can now be read as coping or gratitude, his devotion to the Lord as desperation to be saved or a way to maintain superiority and power. Peters plays to all these interpretations.

Does it all come together? Not quite. And yet that open endedness, that lack of closure… that’s life sometimes. It’s incongruent with the ending, that plays it as if Flik has still had a positive coming of age and has left this neighborhood with some sense of community and put down his walls, instead of continuing to play with the betrayal and the hypocrisy of the previous generations and black Christianity. And yet the ending montage is still shot with such heart and skill and most of all love for this place that it’s still rousing. Lee’s films can be messy and fraught. But that mess shows a daring lack of fear and restraint, and despite the flaws, I was hooked.