I've always been a big fan of Spike Lee. Malcolm X, Do The Right Thing, and He Got Game were some of the seminal films of my youth that made me appreciate how directors can use their unique voices to tell impassioned stories. His films always felt alive and lived in. His characters were raw and always seemed like real people. His movies felt and looked like they could very easily have been fly on the wall style documentaries. But a funny thing happened to Spike Lee... he lost a step. After his biggest commercial hit of his career, Inside Man, Spike Lee's films seemed to show up with a whimper and not a bang like they used to. I've largely avoided them recently. Critics reviled them and audiences largely stayed away. However, Hollywood loves a comeback story and I'm really happy to state that BlacKkKlansman is the comeback we've been waiting for. It's the perfect film that both looks back and takes note of where we are as a society. BlacKkKlansman is THE movie of the Trump era. It excoriates the past, while at the same time tying it into our political culture.
Klansman is the "based on a true story" of Ron Stallworth, an African American cop who successfully infiltrated the KKK in the late 70s. He spoke with them on the phone and his partner showed up to the meetings to deal with the Klan in person. The two sides of Stallworth in this movie are played impressively by John David Washington (Denzel Washington's son in a breakout role) and Adam Driver. They work brilliantly together to expose this terrorist group, and their story is put together with great energy. For the first time in awhile, Lee seemed like he was having fun making a film.
Make no mistake, this is not a subtle movie. Spike Lee takes great delight in tearing down the Klan, and portraying them as bumbling doofuses. In particular, David Duke (not so subtly shown chanting "America First") is shown as the complete ignoramus that he is, and you could almost feel Lee's energy bursting through during these scenes.
What I really enjoyed most about this film was that while it played out like an action comedy, it took great measures to show how much damage this line of thinking has done to the country. The film directly mentions two films that have done more to glorify the Confederate South... Gone With The Wind and The Birth Of A Nation. Images from these films are inter cut with a Klan monologue at the very open of the film shows just how much of an impact that they had on the modern Klan. Lee takes great strides to connect the dots between these films and our current president's MAGA agenda (there's even a MAGA line thrown in there for fun). Lee ends the film with a heartbreaking nod to the tragedy in Charlottesville.
The most powerful moment of the film was a scene showing the initiation ceremony of the Klan that was inter cut with a monologue from Hollywood legend Harry Belafonte. His character speaks to an horrific incident of the Klan's history that shows the real life impact of the hate group. It was a truly somber scene that has stayed with me since I saw the film.
I'm giving BlacKkKlansman 3.9 stars out of 4. It's a must see and should hopefully be a major player come awards season.
