BlacKkKlansman (2018, R)

I was excited for this movie as soon as I heard about it.  The trailer looked great, and it seemed full of promise to be an incisive stranger-than-fiction piece from Spike Lee.  Honestly, I was a little surprised that it came to my local cinema from the jump, since I remember how I had to wait for the DVD to see Chi-Raq, but I certainly wasn’t complaining and grabbed the first showing available.

In the 1970s, Ron Stallworth becomes Colorado Springs’s first Black police officer.  After languishing away in records, he campaigns for a shot at working undercover, and he’s sent to infiltrate a speaking engagement by “Black radical” Kwame Ture.  Ron has his sights set on an entirely different fish, however, and he takes the initiative to make contact with the local KKK chapter over the phone.  With Ron wooing the Klan through phone calls and a white officer (Flip, a non-practicing Jew) enlisted to play “Ron” in person, they get inside the group and make ties all the way up to Grandwizard David Duke.

I’ll admit that I don’t know much about the true story this movie is based on, but the mere fact that it is based on a true story is incredible, and it’s easy to see why Lee would make it into a movie.  The idea of two cops, one Black and one Jewish, infiltrating the KKK – gaining vital intel while simultaneously playing them for fools – is just too good.  It’s a story that brings drama and irony in equal measure, and the film draws out both masterfully.

The trailer leans hard into the irony, highlighting shots of the other detectives gawking at Ron as he sits at his desk rattling off the list of racial slurs for all the groups he allegedly hates, or David Duke priding himself on “knowing” he’s speaking to an Aryan white man on the phone.  And to be sure, the film makes no bones about how stupid these racists are in their baseless hatred.  But it shines just as strong a light on the filth they wallow in, the true ugliness and danger of their ideas.  Of the two cops, Flip gets the harsher dose of this.  Ron, working over the phone, is often able to be slightly removed (at least in terms of physical safety,) while Flip is the one venturing repeatedly into the viper’s nest, evading suspicions and rubbing elbows with hateful people a hair-trigger away from doing something about it.

The movie is a definite period piece with Afros for days, but it also doesn’t waste any chance to remind us how relevant and immediate these issues still are.  There are several Trump references in the film, each one more pronounced than the last, and the ending draws a clear, decisive line between then and now.  There are places where I think the film is just a bit too pointed about this and might have been even more effective reeling it back slightly.  The ending, though, is as perfect as it is powerful, and I wouldn’t change a thing there.

John David Washington (son of Denzel) heads the film as Ron, doing terrific work all the way around.  Whether Ron is restrained, fuming, cocky, or triumphant, or quietly dismayed, Washington conveys it all with care.  Equally great is Adam Driver as Flip – he anchors some fantastically-tense scenes – and Topher Grace does a fine job with the sickeningly-affable David Duke.  The film also features Laura Harrier from Spider-Man:  Homecoming, Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton) as Kwame Ture, Michael Buscemi (brother of Steve,) and Paul Walter Hauser, who was great in I, Tonya last year.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements, disturbing images (including cross-burning,) language (including slurs,) violence, and sexual content.