Ok, first of all I have to confess that I have not seen as many Spike Lee films as I should have. A million years ago, I watched Do The Right Thing and I am way overdue for a re-watch. I saw Bamboozled (super underrated, btw) in college and Inside Man randomly with my parents. And of course, I saw BlackKklansman which I'm about the review here. So I feel like I want to make some assumptions about Spike Lee's work but can't because I'm a Spike Lee novice and I need to remedy that.
Anyhoo. BlackKklansman is the true story of Ron Stallworth, the first Black police detective in Colorado Spring, Colorado. The year is 1972 (however, the events that inspired the movie actually took place in 1979), so the country is smack in the middle of the Black Power movement. Ron is hardly a radical, but when he goes undercover see Kwame Ture (previously Stokely Carmichael, who changed his name after traveling to Africa) speak at a rally, he finds himself very attracted to Ture's message of not playing nice with the white establishment.
A while later, Ron (played beautifully by John David Washington) sees an ad in the local newspaper for the Ku Klux Klan. He calls the line and pretends to be a racist white person. After some convincing, his boss allows him and his white colleague Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver, excellent as always) to infiltrate the local Klan. Ron will connect with them over the phone and Flip will play Ron for in-person visits with Klan members. Ultimately, this puts Ron in the path of none other than David Duke (Topher Grace, who looks disturbingly similar to young David Duke)--the "Grand Wizard" of the KKK himself.
BlackKklansman is surprisingly fun and funny for a story of horrific racism. Lee makes sure to mock the Klan for the bigoted fools they are and to show how Ron used their own ignorance and assumptions against them. For example, there's a great scene where Ron is talking to Duke on the phone and Duke says that he always knows when he's talking to a Black person because of their voices and, specifically, the way they pronounce "our". BlackKklansman should be noted as the second great film of the summer to use the concept of a "white voice" as a pivotal plot point. Lee walks a fine line between giving the audience plenty to laugh at while also reminding them that the KKK has and continues to commit acts of violence and brutality.
In fact, the greatest weakness of the film is that it is a bit on the nose in how it ties the racism of the 1970s to the racism of the past few years, with David Duke making pointed comments about hoping America will be restored to its previous "greatness" and Ron laughing at the idea of a guy like David Duke ever being elected president. Har har. That said, Lee's use of footage from the "Unite the Right" Rally in Charlottesville last summer and his dedication of the film to Heather Heyer still feels like a gut-punch. As much time as we spend laughing at the racist hicks in the film, we are forced to reckon with the fact that these same hicks are responsible for not just Heyer's murder, but the murder of thousands of Black people throughout the 20th century. There is a scene where an older gentleman describes the brutal castration and lynching of a developmentally disabled Black man in the 1920s who was accused of raping a white woman. The most disturbing part of this scene is knowing that this same violence still happens today and that we're NOT better than or beyond the racist brutality of post-Civil War America, or 1920s America, or 1960s America. Basically, different decade, same bullshit.
BlackKklansman also wades into some discussion about whether Black people can disrupt racism from within racist systems. Ron's girlfriend, Patrice, is the head of the black student union and believes that the police are inherently racist. Ron disagrees and argues that a Black cop could change things from the inside. The best part of Patrice and Ron's ongoing discussion? The fact that it isn't resolved by the end of the film--the two continue to disagree (respectfully) until the end. I liked that because there was no easy answer then and there is no easy answer today.
Although I liked Do The Right Thing and Bamboozled more, BlackKklansman is worth the watch. It isn't perfect, but it's thought-provoking and entertaining. It's not particularly interested in exploring the inherent humanity of racists and bigots, the way some movies that tread similar ground do, and while I love me some deep explorations of the nature of evil, it's kind of a relief to just make fun of these assholes for once.
Grade: B-
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