Good movie. Important movie. It may be 33 years old but it's still relevant. You can feel the 100 degrees and the tension. It reminds me of La Haine, but I like this movie better for its more intriguing motley NY multicultural microcosm. It's of course not a very enjoyable movie. It's not meant to be. Virtually everybody is racist, everybody is yelling and - as a cold North European - I can't really relate to all those true or histrionic emotions that eventually lead to doom. Some of the characters seem to be a bit too cartoon-ish, even stereotype. But that's clearly a deliberate choice. This movie is full of brilliant characters, Which all represent certain sections of the American society. I like the fact, that almost nobody in this movie is exclusively good or bad. It were easy to depict the black community as innocent victims of brutal cops but the movie is much more complex. Needless to say, but it has a great score.