BlacKkKlansman review

BLACKkKLANSMAN:

SPIKE LEE DELIVERS QUITE POSSIBLY THE MOST POIGNANT AND RELEVANT MOVIE IN HIS DIRECTING CAREER!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: **** out of 4

FOCUS FEATURES

A cop goes undercover as a white supremacist in the Ku Klux Klan in BlacKkKlansman

            At last, we’re finally looking at a movie directed by acclaimed filmmaker, Spike Lee (Malcolm X, Inside Man, Chi-Raq) on this blog. BlacKkKlansman is a biographical crime film directed by Lee with Jordan Peele (Key & Peele, Keanu, Get Out) as producer and is based on the insane true story about the first African-American detective in the police department who goes undercover to expose the Ku Klux Klan.

            I was onboard for this movie the moment I heard about the premise and watched the trailer for the first time. And with Spike Lee helming the project, you know what you’re getting into, a fascinating but extremely honest film with a lot of social commentary and relevance to current events.

            Not only did it live up to my expectations but BlacKkKlansman completely surpassed them, the marketing makes it look like a campy 70s cop movie, IT IS NOT! It’s an intense, hard-hitting movie that uses history to provide commentary on current events, and it never goes soft.

            It isn’t like Sorry to Bother You where a lot of its social commentary gets overshadowed by its absurd storytelling. Even though it still looks like a movie, it feels completely real with really convincing performances, heavy themes of race, and by the end it leaves you breathless.

            The film is set in 1972 Colorado and follows Ron Stallworth (John David Washington-Ballers) who has just been hired as the first black detective on the Colorado Springs police force. He discovers an advertisement in the newspaper to join the Ku Klux Klan and calls them using a white man voice (No David Cross or Patton Oswalt dubbing in this film) to investigate their latest chapter.

            So, how does a black man infiltrate the notorious KKK without being noticed? By recruiting his Jewish co-worker, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver-Star Wars sequel trilogy, Silence, Logan Lucky) to pose as him to meet the Ku Klux Klan members in person. Together they team up to take the extremist hate group down as the organization aims to cleanse its violent passion to appeal to the mainstream.

            The film also stars Laura Harrier (One Life to Live, 4^th Man Out, Spider-Man: Homecoming) as Patrice Dumas, Topher Grace (That 70s Show, Spider-Man 3, Predators) as David Duke, Corey Hawkins (The Walking Dead, 24: Legacy, Straight Outta Compton) as Kwame Ture, Jasper Paakkonen (Vikings) as Felix Kendrickson, Paul Walter Hauser (Kingdom, I, Tonya, Super Troopers 2) as Ivanhoe, Ryan Eggold (Veronica Mars, 90210, The Blacklist) as Walter Breachway, Ashlie Atkinson (The Invention of Lying, Margot at the Wedding, The Wolf of Wall Street) as Connie Kendrickson, Robert John Burke (Good Night, and Good Luck, Brooklyn’s Finest, 2 Guns) as Chief Bridges, Fred Weller (Law & Order, The Good Wife, Banshee) as Patrolman Andy Landers, Nicholas Turturro (The Longest Yard (2005), Nurse 3D, Justice League: Dark) as Walker, Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Goodfellas, Chi-Raq) as Mr. Turrentine, Alec Baldwin (30 Rock, Blue Jasmine, Mission: Impossible 5 and 6) as Dr. Kennebrew Beaureguard, Harry Belafonte (Uptown Saturday Night, The Muppet Show, Kansas City) as Jerome Turner, Craig muMs Grant (Chappelle’s Show, Def Poetry, Luke Cage) as Jabbo, and Damaris Lewis (Limitless, The Rewrite, Listen Up Phillip) as Odetta.

            Overall, BlacKkKlansman is an unforgettable experience that hits you emotionally and it never stops. Watching the scenes involving the KKK and comparing them to real life is actually pretty eerie literally right down to ending the film with Trump footage.

            Unlike 12 Years a Slave, the intensity of the movie does not come from its violent content. It’s more along the lines of Selma or 42 where it’s the subject matter that’s really intense, but the story features timely themes that are still addressed today and the way the film ends is where its message shines, and Spike Lee executes it beautifully and poignantly.

            It truly is the best Spike Lee movie in a really long time, not that his recent films were bad or anything like that, I thought Chi-Raq and Inside Man were legitimately solid films. However, none of them really lived up to his earlier work like Malcolm X or Do the Right Thing, until now.

            From the production design, screenplay, performances, and subject matter, Spike Lee knew what he was doing and managed to bring the time period to life. Even the choice of soundtrack music matched the tone of the film for the most part, though every time I hear Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl) I keep thinking I’m watching Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2, but I digress.

            This is one of those movies that everyone needs to watch, take a break from your superhero movies, dinosaurs, and Tom Cruise stunts and go watch this clever, witty, and relevant story that’s worth all the attention it gets. Like The Post, it ends as a haunting reminder of what continues to happen in America regarding politics and society.