Get on the Bus
“Get on the Bus” was one of my very first Spike Lee joints; it may have been my first (I can’t remember if I watched this or “Malcolm X” first). I remember seeing the trailer for it several times in 1996, and I was curious to watch it, even though I didn’t really understand the full weight of what it was representing. I had heard about the Million Man March in 1995, but it would be a few years more before the larger political landscape that led to it would be appreciated. It looked entertaining enough, though, and I liked the fact that Lee was aided by actors Danny Glover, Will Smith and Wesley Snipes with funds to make the film. I really liked it then; now, it shows itself as probably one of Spike Lee’s best, and most important, films.
Spike Lee has always been at his strongest when his social conscious has been front and center, and “Get on the Bus” feels, in structure, like simply an entertaining road movie. But the screenplay by Reggie Rock Bythewood has more on its mind than just putting 16 mismatched people on a bus to Washington D.C. from Los Angeles. The person leading the bus is George, played by the great Charles S. Dutton, and he and his driver, Craig (Albert Hall), are excited to open their charter bus to this group of black men going to D.C. to be a part of history. Along the way, as personal relationships become revealed, tensions begin to emerge, and worldviews start to get revealed that may ruin the initial camaraderie on the bus, with the bus breaking down, and another driver being sent out (the white, Jewish Rick, played by Richard Belzer), being the first rip in the fabric for this group.
The cast digging into Bythewood’s script is a world-class ensemble, starting with Dutton and Hall (and Belzer has some great scenes that get to prejudices that are painful even between minorities), but the rest of this cast is where “Get on the Bus” really starts to establish itself. As Jeremiah, a senior with no one around, and an encyclopedic knowledge of African-American history, is played by Ossie Davis with his typical blend of energy and authority as he looks to teach these younger men why this is so important. Also on the bus is Gary (Roger Guenveur Smith), a half black/half white police officer who gets shit for his parentage, but has some pains that allow him to get some of the other passengers to empathize with him. One person that is hard with is Jamal (Gabriel Casseus), a Muslim who used to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from Gary, and is trying to make up for his past life. Other key people on the bus are an actor with a big mouth and bigger ego (Andre Braugher); a film student making a documentary of the event (Hill Harper); a gay couple in the midst of breaking up (Isaiah Washington and Harry Lennix); and a father and son court ordered to be shackled together for 72 hours, with the father (Thomas Jefferson Byrd) wanting to be closer to his son, but the son (De’Aundre Bonds) does not want anything to do with him. This cast also includes Steve White as a conspiracy theorist and Bernie Mac as a bubble gum company owner, but it’s these above characters and actors that breathe the life and passion into Lee’s film. What makes “Get on the Bus” great is the tensions and passions that arise between these passengers, how their different life experiences come to inspire and influence changes in their respective views on life, and how their lives are enhanced not by the march itself, but the journey they have in getting there. Yeah, that sounds pretty damn cliche, but it’s ultimately one of the things that makes Lee’s film so interesting.
What Spike Lee is able to do in many of his greatest films is to present, honestly, several different vantage points on society, and a situation, while respecting the characters no matter what side they are on, and whether they agree with him or not. In Tennessee, the bus picks up a car salesman who is politically the opposite of basically everyone else on the bus. Yes, he gets thrown out of the bus after talking a little too much shit, but he touches off a fascinating discussion on what is truly beneficial and honest about the black experience in America, and while the film takes place in 1995, the discussion is as timely as ever now. If you get the chance, I can’t recommend watching the film enough. It’s a movie that satisfies plenty on an entertainment level, as much as any Spike Lee film has, but it also touches on a social discussion that continues to reverberate today.
