Film Review - BlacKkKlansman

Starting with the famous sweeping  dolly out shot of Scarlet O'Hara searching frantically through  wounded Confederate soldiers at the Atlanta Railway Station from Gone With The Wind ending with the frayed Confederate Flag blowing in the wind. Spike Lee announces his presence with his latest Spike Lee Joint BlacKkKlansman. Lee makes the case that from 1865, though the teens, 50's,  70's setting of the film continuing on to last year at Charlottesville. The more thing change the more they stay the same.

Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) has just joined the force of the Colorado Springs Police Department. He is the only black officer on the force. After a time in records, he lands in the investigative unit. One day while reading the paper he sees an add for the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. He calls the number to obtain more information hurls some racial slurs leading to a meeting.  Problem is he can't go to the meeting. In steps Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) a non-practicing Jewish officer to play the live role to Ron's phone presence.

 Lee is back with a bang unleashing his best non-documentary film since Inside Man in 2006. He came to the project after a phone call from Executive Producer Jordan Peele asking if he wanted to direct the Ron Stallworth project. Spike adds in all of his touches to the film. The rich colour palate, Characters floating towards the camera, and the straight-on shot of actors addressing the camera directly. The subject matter based on a Fo real account is so unbelievable that Spike plays it with a heavy dose of satire. Right down to the doting wife of true believer Felix Kendrickson (Jasper Paakkonen) Connie (Ashlie Atkinson) dropping intel to an association meeting room as she spouts racial slurs then offers the group dessert.

Another Lee trait is to have a Washington in the film. Normally its Denzel but in this instant, his son John David plays Ron Stallworth. Washington has to walk between several worlds.  He's the first black officer on the CSPD having to protect those who instinctively don't like him.  He's dating the head of the Colorado College Black Student Union Patrice (Laura Harrier) who calls cops pigs sure each one is out to harass black people. Then he's doing a dance on the phone with the Klan trying to get intel without blowing his or Flips cover. Look for Alex Baldwin as a 50's era white- supremacist theologian Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard in a satiric drenched diatribe warning of the ills of integration carotid in the Brown vs Board of Education decision when he's not referring to Reverend Martin Luther King by a derogatory name. the interlude is full of Lee's trademark over-saturated colour palate as the Dr. who shares a last name with a Confederate General and current Attorney General Jeff Sessions makes several mistakes receives prompts from of camera to remember his lines.

BlacKkKlansman is a comment on the past, the films early 1970's setting and modern day. The narrative pushes the theme that change can't be forged from inside old slow-moving institutions but rather has to be forced on them from outside. The piece also takes every opportunity to link the past present and future never more on the nose than when Donald Trumps catch phrases pass through organization members lips. It's a bold fact based tale helmed by a director that has been looking for a project along these lines for over a decade.

***1/2 Out of 4.

BlacKkKlansman | Spike Lee | U.S.A.  | 2018 | 135 Minutes.

Tags: Colorado Springs, Rookie Cop, Undercover, Ku Klux Klan, Membership, Black Panther, Stokley Carmichael, Black Power, White Power, David Duke, Initiation, Birth of A Nation, C4, Bomb.