BlacKkKlansman

Spike Lee’s last film, Chi-raq, was my third-favourite film of 2016, so I had high expectations for his critically-acclaimed BlacKkKlansman. While the acclaim is well-deserved, I am disappointed that Lee’s new film won’t make my top fifteen list.

Based on a true story, BlacKkKlansman tells the story of Ron Stallworth (played by John David Washington), the first African-American detective on the Colorado Springs Police Force, which he joined in 1972. Stallworth’s desire to do undercover work will lead to him joining the KKK, rising to a position of some influence within that organization. Stallworth is able to accomplish this because he initiated contact over the phone and then convinced his superiors to allow another undercover officer (Flip Zimmerman, played by Adam Driver) to pretend to be Stallworth when meeting with the KKK members. Having the two Stallworths in BlacKkKlansman creates the central tension in the film and allows for some fascinating things to happen, especially when the National Director of the KKK, David Duke, comes to town, but it also feels awkward and is one of the reasons I couldn’t give the film four stars.

The 70’s setting of BlacKkKlansman is brilliantly handled (it even felt like a 70’s film), and one of the highlights of the film, making it all the scarier to see how little has changed in the U.S. since then. Of course, this is why Lee made the film in the first place, as a response to Trump, white supremacists and the ongoing police violence against African-Americans. Lee’s commentary is spot-on and well done. Police mistreatment of African-Americans is featured ion the film, but I was impressed by the generally positive way the Colorado Springs police department reacts to Stallworth’s presence among them and to his desire to infiltrate the KKK. It’s a wise balance by Lee, allowing him to get in a particularly strong blow against American tolerance for the KKK near the end of the film. 

However, coincidentally, Boots Riley, the writer/director of my last-reviewed film, was very angry with Lee for depicting the police in such a positive manner when ‘African-Americans face structural racism “from the police on a day-to-day basis”’(quoted from Wikipedia). 

One of my favourite scenes in BlacKkKlansman is a KKK meeting where the members watch The Birth of a Nation, a 1915 film considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. BlacKkKlansman makes it all too clear that, regardless of its technical merits, The Birth of a Nation is one of the worst films ever made and should not, IMHO, be allowed to even be considered for acclaim.

There was a great deal about BlacKkKlansman that I enjoyed very much. Washington and Driver were terrific, though I couldn’t help hearing Washington’s father’s (Denzel’s) voice every time he spoke. This was also a problem (but a fun problem) when I heard Michael Buscemi speak (he played a fellow police officer). Other notable actors were Laura Harrier as Patrice (leader of the local Black Student Union, and Stallowrth’s girlfriend), Topher Grace as Duke and Harry Belafonte as James Turner (another terrific scene). The cinematography that gave the film its 70’s feel was excellent, as was the score/music which added to the period feel. 

So why can’t I give BlacKkKlansman four stars? Well, for me, the story was told in too straight forward a way. The scenes involving Driver, in  particular, were handled in a weird less-than-credible way. Maybe Lee was trying too hard to make the film as true as possible, which resulted in making it feel less true. Or maybe my problem relates to the fact that this film has been labelled a comedy, which it most certainly is not. Lee’s sometimes over-the-top way of injecting humour does not make the film a comedy, but this incongruity may have been part of my problem. In any event, BlacKkKlansman gets a solid ***+. My mug is up.