2018 | Dir. Spike Lee | 135 Minutes
"Some of us can speak King's English, others speak jive. Ron Stallworth here happens to be fluent in both."
Fed up with working the records room, Colorado Springs' first black police officer Ron Stallworth is reassigned to the intelligence unit where he opens an investigation into the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. While Ron corresponds with the Klan over the phone, his white partner Flip Zimmerman poses as Ron to infiltrate the Klan in person. Together, they uncover the Klan's terrorist plot to bomb a civil rights rally organized by black college students.
Based on Ron Stallworth's memoir, Spike Lee's latest joint gives Stallworth's harrowing real life story a humorous Blaxploitation spin, and the laughs are ever at the expense of hateful bigots. While the picture features a few moments of heightened reality, the film mostly plays it straight, balancing moments of tension, as Flip is under constant scrutiny from twitchy Klan member Felix, and comedy, as Ron seizes every opportunity to make a fool out of Grand Wizard David Duke during their phone conversations. Lee questions the role of both good and bad police in the systematic oppression of minorities, and he juxtaposes the unjustified anger of hate groups against the anger of the truly oppressed.
Skillfully demonstrating the power of film, in one notable sequence Lee compares the deeply problematic fantasy of white superiority as portrayed in D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation to the stark reality of the excessively brutal lynching of Jesse Washington presented in real photographs. Expertly, Lee also demonstrates the strength of the moving image in how he bookends the film: opening it with a buffoonish white authority figure condemning the Brown v. Board of Education decision over jarringly edited black and white footage, and closing it with real video footage of the so-called Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and the following vehicular assault against counter-protesters that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer in 2017.
John David Washington proves to be a capable lead actor in the role of Ron, exuding natural charisma, dignity, and real charm. As Flip, Adam Driver is convincing as man with no political leanings suddenly forced to invest in the struggle for social justice after being witnessing evil first-hand. Perfectly cast in the role Patrice Dumas, the black student union president with militant leanings, Laura Harrier doesn't simply fulfill the role of Ron's love interest, she also acts as a strong youthful counterpoint to Ron's faith in the justice system. Topher Grace's signature slightly awkward energy makes his portrayal of David Duke all the more disturbing.
On the surface, BlacKkKlansman is an entertaining movie about a clever lawman besting a group of ignorant criminals with his intellect and resourcefulness. However, just under the surface is a challenging work that examines rhetoric based in falsehoods used to galvanize the hateful and the futility of strictly playing by the rules when attempting to change a broken system. Intriguingly, it also makes a grand statement about the power of film in troubled times, whether that power is used to spread lies or communicate the truth.
FRAGMENTS
- The character of Flip Zimmerman was fabricated for the film as the the true identity of Stallworth's partner remains confidential considering the nature of his role in the real life investigation
- The Klan's bomb plot is also a fabrication to create a narrative for the film's final act; the real Klan chapter that Stallworth and his partner investigated had inserted their members into high-ranking military positions
- Adam Driver spouting fascist Klan rhetoric under a hood sounds exactly like his character Kylo Ren in the Star Wars films
- To fight the depression he felt after playing David Duke, Topher Grace recut Peter Jackson's eight-hour Hobbit Trilogy into a more streamlined, theoretically better two-hour movie
MCU CONNECTIONS
- Corey Hawkins (Navy Operator in Iron Man 3)
- Laura Harrier (Liz Allan in Spider-Man: Homecoming)
