{alltv} Lee's 'Creek' don't quite rise to level of 'Levees'

Righteous anger can only take an artist so far so often.

In the immediate wake of Hurricane Katrina, brilliantly expressed rage was more than enough to power Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, a devastating indictment of man's inadequate response to a foreseeable natural disaster.

But while anger still simmers in and around New Orleans five years later, and justifiably so, its targets have spread and its impact has dissipated. What's left in its wake is If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise, a four-hour followup that sputters more than it soars — and is likely to leave most viewers behind.

Clearly the subject matter of Da Creek, the continued suffering of a great American city, is a crucial one. And many of the problems Lee explores, from decaying schools to corrupt cops to class-fueled battles over land use, will strike chords of recognition in cities both large and small all across America.

Yet so many troubles are aired in the first three hours of the film that it begins to feel like you've been dropped into the middle of an ongoing local debate that predated Katrina by decades and will no doubt continue just as long. There's a cacophony of charges and counter-charges, with too little effort made to sort out possibly justified complaints from crank accusations and no effort at all to stay on point. Lee is an indulgent filmmaker, both of himself and of some of his subjects, and that indulgence can become wearing.

Da Creek is more personal statement than news documentary, and Lee is under no obligation to present all sides or verify all claims. But when a black woman complains about being relocated to a mostly white Utah town, you may find yourself wondering what the film's response would have been had the town used race as a reason to keep her out.

And when Sean Penn accuses the government of providing too little help to Haiti (an odd diversion that seems to exist only to give Penn airtime), you can't help wishing there were some numbers provided to back up that claim.

Then you get to the final hour, an unplanned extension added when the BP oil disaster struck. In this last, best section, Da Creek takes on a focus, a passion and an often bracingly bitter sense of laughing-in-the-graveyard humor that had been missing up to then.

It's a one-sided look at the issues to be sure, but if it can serve to stoke debate and to keep the fate of the Gulf and the wetlands from fading from public view for just a little while longer, it will have served a valuable purpose.

And if that hour makes you angry, sometimes anger is the only rational response.

If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise
HBO, Monday and Tuesday, 9 ET/PT
* * * (out of four)