BlacKKKlansman

Plot: In 1970's Colorado Springs, black undercover detective Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) begins to investigate the local KKK, and later recruits Jewish colleague Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to go undercover with the group. Ron attends a lecture with Kwame Ture/ aka Stokely Carmichael (Corey Howkins) and meets cute student activist Patrice (Laura Harrier). Patrice becomes a love interest and the top local black-power activist. Flip goes to Klan meetings where they say outrageous things and plan for the coming revolution. Ron talks to David Duke (Topher Grace) the head of the KKK nationwide, and when Duke comes to Colorado Springs Flip meets him. Soon after this the local KKK gets violent, and this leads to the final scenes.  After the drama resolved, there are pointed images from recent events linking the KKK's hate mongering to recent events. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: A well-made film that builds to a strong anti-racist message: pro-police, pro-tolerance, and unmistakably anti-Trump. This is a cop story that illustrates carries a pro-civil rights story from the Black students, and a violently, hateful and racist story from the local KKK chapter. When the movie ends, there are scenes from the news that ratchet up the tension, and take the events from the 1970's to now. Director Lee deftly moves from outrage about the past to outrages of the present, and perhaps to thoughts of what to do about it. I left the theater very thoughtful.

BlackkKlansman has some slow stylish parts, for example, Patrice and Ron dance a long time, and Stokely Carmichael/Ture  gives a lengthy polemic that made me squirm, and that speech was intercut with artistic images of the audience members faces floating in darkness. The photography at the bridge with the FBI agent is beautiful. The interior meeting scenes were stylish with earthy costumes and round Afros.

Both Patrice and Duke are planning for revolutions, but quite different ones. Director Lee does NOT give us any solutions, but he does help us feel the problem more clearly.

I had the occasion to listen to Slate's series on the slavery and reconstruction. I never realized how badly the Union's reconstruction project failed and that southern whites assembled a culture with myths of Southern dignity, statues of generals, heritage marches, and white power groups. There is  link between slavery, Jim Crow, and today's voter intimidation, gerrymandering, building-the-wall, hatred of foreigners, even import tariffs. Slavery was a terrible thing, and even 155 years later, it's intrinsic evil and corruption linger.

Cast: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, Topher Grace

Directed by: Spike Lee

Written by: Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee; based on the book by Ron Stallworth 

The Music: Melodic orchestral music by Terence Blanchard intercut with some 70's oldies. 

The Visuals: As mentioned above, there are several stylish scenes, the dancing, the bridge, the floating faces. Laura Harrier's hair and costume are pretty great too. 

Rating: 4.0 stars: Skillfully made, always interesting, well-engaged in our political moment, and with a clear moral message.

 

More: I was surprised how few people were at the movie. People should go see it.

Even More: The real Ron Stallworth was born in 1953 in El Paso, Texas. More here.

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