Spike Lee is a master at fusing an entertaining film with racial realism.
BlacKkKlansman
Grade: B+
Director: Spike Lee (Malcolm X)
Screenplay: Charlie Wachtel, et al. (based on the book by Ron Stallworth)
Cast: John David Washington (The Book of Eli), Adam Driver (Paterson)
Runtime: 2h 15 min
by John DeSando
In the ‘70’s race relations were détente at best, nowhere better exemplified than by the Colorado Springs Police Department, where black Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) was a detective. Not just any detective, for the true story of his infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan is smartly re-created by acclaimed director Spike Lee in BlacKkKlansman.
Lee opens with a claim that sets his wide-ranging tone: “Based on Some Fo’ Real, Fo’ Real.” His subsequent illustration with D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind, however, shows that the deeply serious subject of BlacKkKlansman is racial terrorism.
The biography and satire are best at showing the racism still prevalent at that time, especially the Klan’s fervid hatred of Jews and blacks. The infiltration of the Klan is uniquely pulled off by splitting up Stallworth into his white phone voice and in person using the white Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to substitute for Stallworth.
When Lee uses Alec Baldwin to play a pro-segregation narrator who keeps fumbling and forgetting his lines, Lee is at his best with trenchant satire going down easily with a bit of humor. In some ways, this film approaches the brilliance of Lee’s Do the Right thing.
Lee, who inherited this project from Jordan Peele, keeps the action moving, as if it were a top cop show in the ‘70’s with low-key humor and slow revelations accompanied by crisp performances and an air of professionalism. Most notably toward the end are Lee’s obvious references to current authoritarian, racist administrators at the highest levels of society.
The claim by one character that the level of bigotry and racism would never happen again received chuckles from our audience. Yet, more seriously from Mr. Lee himself:
“We are living in pure undiluted sanity. Families are being stripped apart, kids put in cages, that’s going back to our ancestors being broken up and sold. That’s the world we live in.”
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
