Lee claimed in interviews JUNGLE FEVER was the film he'd been leading up to career-wise. If that's true, it's interesting he doesn't supply us with a payoff. Certainly, he has an interesting setup. Flipper (Snipes) is an architect who feels he's being taken for granted by his bosses (Brad Dourif and Tim Robbins). He's also happily married to Drew (Lonette McKee), a buyer for Bloomingdale's, and they have a ten-year old daughter, Ming (Veronica Timbers), whom Flipper walks to school every day. Meanwhile, Angie (Annabella Sciorra) is a temp worker who lives with her father (Frank Vincent) and two brothers Charlie (David Dundera) and James (Michael Imperioli). She's also involved with Paulie (John Turturro), who works for his father Lou (Anthony Quinn) at his luncheonette, but you get the sense Angie is involved with Paulie not because she wants it, but because it's expected of her.
Angie ends up getting a job as Flipper's secretary. The two of them end up spending late nights at the office, and inevitably, start an affair. They each tell others discreetly; Angie tells her friends Denise (Debi Mazar) and Louise (Gina Mastrogiacomo), while Flipper tells his best friend Cyrus (Lee), a teacher. While Denise and Louise both caution Angie on the mess she's likely to get into, Cyrus thinks it's a sign of "jungle fever." What he means here is that he thinks black-white romances, and Flipper and Angie's in particular, are based on myths; blacks think white women are somehow more pure, while white women are attracted to the idea that black men are sexually superior to whites (interestingly enough, neither Cyrus nor Angie's friends object to the fact that Flipper and Angie are cheating on their partners, just who they're cheating with).
