Absolutely Fantastic

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Spike Lee's "Get On the Bus" sees a group of African-American men boarding a bus to Washington, DC. Once there they hope to attend the Million Man March. The brainchild of Louis Farrakhan, the event was staged in an attempt to draw attention to the various social and economic ills plaguing the African-American community.Much "African American art" between the period of 1985-1995 took aim at what was perceived to have been a failure in black manhood (the March itself excluded women). Black problems were seen to be exclusively a "black problem", and one which could be fixed if only black males "became better role models", "stopped blaming whites", "stopped engaging in crime" and "picked themselves up by their bootstraps". Blacks, in other words, should improve their conditions, a stance which radical African American activist Carl Dix would mock: "Black youth pulling up their pants doesn't stop factories moving half way around the world. Don't treat results as if they're causes!" Lee's "Get On The Bus" is another tract which ignores systems and mistakes results and causes. His film's bus is filled with various characters, all of whom are stereotypes. And so we meet the wise black man, the religious black man, the gay black man, the hard working black man, the young artist, the middle-aged actor, the Jewish bus driver, the homophobe, the civil worker, the mixed race black man, the tough guy, the bad father, the petty criminal, the sensitive guy etc. After he sets up various preconceptions and clichés, Lee then reverses them by employing various countercliches. By its end, "Bus" posits black progress as being dependent upon the negotiation of conflicting attitudes, and the weathering of both generational shifts and divisions within black communities. The film's opening sequence, which conveys all the film's themes in a concise manner, exemplifies this. Here we see shots of an African in chains, whilst the lyrics to Michael Jackson's "On The Line" unfold: "No sense pretending it's over, hard times just don't go away, you must take that chip off your shoulder, open up and have some faith. Nothing good ever comes easy, all good things come in due time, have something to believe in, open your mind." "Get On The Bus" sports fine performances by Charles S. Dutton and Wendell Pierce, the latter playing a Republican businessman who is comically thrown off Lee's bus (another Republican stays on). The rest of Lee's cast are unconvincing, largely due to a heavy handed, overly didactic screenplay. The film was shot on a tiny budget over the course of 18 days.6/10 – Worth one viewing.

Another FINE effort by America's most UNDERrated filmmaker. His knowledge on the subject of racism is STAGGERING, and IMPRESSES me on more than one level. Accusations that Lee is really just a devious little racist, a poisonous dwarf who opportunistically exploits Hollywood's Affirmative Action system to make movies of inferior quality is utter NONSENSE, mere Right-Wing propaganda. The very notion that Lee would resort to misusing the current climate of political correctness in America in order to produce hate-filled anti-white movies is simply FALSE and malicious.Some of Lee's detractors even go so far as to suggest that GOTB glorifies African-Americans, while putting down other races: obviously, another FALSEHOOD disseminated by people who are AGAINST peaceful co-existence between different races in America and elsewhere.My favourite scene in the movie is a lengthy dialogue early on between the rich black Republican and the others in the bus. The views presented by that man are simply WRONG - all across the board. 100% UNTRUE. He LACKS education, unlike the brilliantly INFORMED guys who quite DESERVEDLY throw him off the bus.TERRIFIC performances, and an INTELLIGENT script make for a viewing experience that has been RARELY rivaled by any political movies made since.I also want to point out the incessant LIES that the Million-Man March had only 80,000 people taking part in it!(And now all you have to do is take the antonyms of all the words written in capital letters...)So what message does Lee send here? If someone doesn't agree with your political views, you simply apply violence and throw him off the bus. I thought the movie said "get ON the bus"...?Apparently, Mr.Lee is for bus-segregation after all, i.e. is no different than those KKK lunatics before him: the bus is only for those blacks who are in line with the Democratic Party's line of thinking. So much for "freeing the slaves"...The end-credits: "This movie was entirely financed by black people." And distributed and marketed by a major Hollywood studio run by Jews and whites whom Farrakhan despises...

The day when Mr. Spike Lee gets the respect he truly deserves will be a great day indeed, but also horrendously overdue. Get On The Bus is a masterpiece. The characters are vibrant and alive, and through them a wide variety of subjects and questions about what makes a man are covered. The brilliance of the film operates on too many levels to mention in one paragraph, but the fact that the cast is a group of black men from vastly diverse backgrounds makes one wonder how some of these men could be identified as the same when they are as different as night and day. Trust, honor, tradition, brotherhood, and cultural history are abound in this tale yet it is just amazing that so much happens in a movie primarily about a bunch of people taking a bus ride. Lee leaves no stone unturned in speaking on the political and social matters that face black men but it never feels forced or contrived in the slightest. The dialog always feels naturalistic as if these are real people and not just characters on a page. Every character is three dimensional regardless of the amount of screen time they are allotted. We are introduced to Gay men, Republicans, Democrats, wise men, young men, flawed men, law men, men of faith, rich business men, poverty stricken single fathers, and all manner of opinions leading to the comment that if there is one thing for the average person to get out of this film it would be that while this diverse group of black men are just men, not African-Americans, not blacks, not Negroes, just men.

The first time I saw this movie , I wasn't impressed with it. It seemed boring and pointless. Then I watched again with friends and got the message behind it. Spike Lee has made a great male bonding film that everyone should see no matter what color you are.