‘Get on the Bus’

Director Spike Lee has not made anything as heartfelt and finally celebratory as his 1996 “Get on the Bus.” Everything about this work bespeaks a level of commitment on the part of its participants, eager to do something in the spirit of the Million Man March on Washington that is the film’s centerpiece. Because Reggie Rock Bythewood’s script is finally about things that are real and significant, it is successful at holding our interest, at making us care and believe. While the Million Man March on Washington called by minister Louis Farrakhan is its nominal subject, “Get on the Bus” is a potent dramatization of many of the issues facing African American men, a look at the wounds that need healing and the rifts that need closing. Structured like one of those World War II movies in which everyone in the platoon has a different story, “Get on the Bus” follows a group of men on a three-day journey between the First AME Church in South-Central Los Angeles and the nation’s capital. Thomas Jefferson Byrd, left, and DeAundre Bonds star. (Cinemax Friday at 8 p.m.).