☆☆☆☆½
Surprisingly, Spike Lee's extraordinary new movie BlacKkKlansman isn't the first movie to use that title. The Black Klansman was released in 1966, six years before Lee's movie takes place, and it's the kind of low-budget exploitation film that has frequently inspired Lee's work, an aesthetic very much at the core of BlacKkKlansman.
The new "Spike Lee Joint" is as bold and vibrant, as meaningful and committed, as entertaining and insightful as anything Lee has made in his 30 years as one of the most prolific of American directors. (Those who think he's been quiet the last few years may be shocked to learn he has directed 13 movies, including shorts, since his last major mainstream hit, 2006's Inside Man.) It's a film that is shockingly, distressingly relevant and impossibly entertaining, a combination few American filmmakers try to achieve.
Of course it's a "message" movie, with a message that is almost unbearably strong, raw and painful, but it's infused with such a strong sense of storytelling, and with such strong technical prowess -- not to mention a cast that is almost faultless -- that it's disappointing to imagine some people staying away from BlacKkKlansman because they don't want to hear more about race relations in America. Those people will miss one of the best entertainments of the year, not to mention one of the best-made movies in recent memory.
And, as BlacKkKlansman tells us right at the start, it's all true. So when the movie breaks character in its final moments and moves into one of the most distressing codas in movie history, the reality of what we've seen fictionalized hits home with devastating impact.
For most of its running time, though, BlacKkKlansman is focused on a good story told well: Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is hired by the police department in Colorado Springs to be its first black officer. He's relegated, though, to the records room, which he hates. When civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael comes to town, though, the police chief uses Stallworth as a way to learn more about "black power" groups and their alleged plans for violence.
Stallworth uses his new assignment against a different race-based group, though: He makes the jaw-dropping move of calling the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan ... and gets invited to meet in person. And there's the problem that drives the movie: Stallworth teams up with another investigator, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to be the face to Stallworth's "white" voice. The ruse works shockingly well, as the pair work their way into and up the chain of the KKK, ending at David Duke (Topher Grace), who urges Stallworth to become a card-carrying KKK member.
While Stallworth and Zimmerman work their plan, Stallworth also meets and begins to fall for a young student activist (Laura Harrier), who begins to suspect that Stallworth might be hiding a lot more than he lets on, even though he's getting more and more involved in the black power movement.
The two parallel stories, and the two parallel "Ron Stallworths," allow Lee to work both his camera and his editor, Barry Alexander Brown, in rich, rewarding ways -- and what's most compelling and surprising (though, given Lee's history, maybe shouldn't be) is how technically overwhelming BlacKkKlansman turns out to be.
One sequence, involving a KKK member, his wife and a bomb, is destined to be a classic of suspense filmmaking; another, which features the parallel activities of a KKK meeting, a screening of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, and a riveting cameo by Harry Belafonte, is similarly strengthened by Lee's intense knowledge of filmmaking techniques. Watching BlacKkKlansman on the level of pure cinema is as rewarding as being told its astonishing tale.
Never one to back away from challenging his audience, Lee infuses BlacKkKlansman with two of the most famous movies in film history: Gone With the Wind and Nation, which we're reminded was the first real Hollywood blockbuster. The way Lee uses them here is disturbing and eye-opening: He's using film to remind us of the unique power of film to influence and mold even the most hateful thinking. Lee, America's foremost black filmmaker, is aware that his own art form and even his own career have been shaped by visions of shocking racism, violence and hatred.
And after infusing BlacKkKlansman with sly references to "making America great again" and keeping "America first" throughout the movie, Lee digs right in to the shape of American race relations today, with an ending that leaves an audience entirely speechless. At least for now, BlacKkKlansman has the last word on such a sorrowful subject.
But it's also such a perfectly entertaining movie -- clever, funny, swift, engaging -- which is an accomplishment it's impossible to overlook. Its only weak spot is the performance of Driver, who never seems to match the enormous energy of the rest of the cast and of the filmmaker; he has a tendency to seem listless, even when the movie calls for him to be at his most passionate.
Even so, when he and Washington finally end up in the same room with David Duke and the KKK, it's a scene of crackling vibrancy. The two halves of Ron Stallworth finally join as one in a sequence that brings together everything -- story, technique, humor, tension, rage, pain -- that is at the heart of BlacKkKlansman.
Viewed August 25, 2018 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
2010
The new "Spike Lee Joint" is as bold and vibrant, as meaningful and committed, as entertaining and insightful as anything Lee has made in his 30 years as one of the most prolific of American directors. (Those who think he's been quiet the last few years may be shocked to learn he has directed 13 movies, including shorts, since his last major mainstream hit, 2006's Inside Man.) It's a film that is shockingly, distressingly relevant and impossibly entertaining, a combination few American filmmakers try to achieve.
Of course it's a "message" movie, with a message that is almost unbearably strong, raw and painful, but it's infused with such a strong sense of storytelling, and with such strong technical prowess -- not to mention a cast that is almost faultless -- that it's disappointing to imagine some people staying away from BlacKkKlansman because they don't want to hear more about race relations in America. Those people will miss one of the best entertainments of the year, not to mention one of the best-made movies in recent memory.
And, as BlacKkKlansman tells us right at the start, it's all true. So when the movie breaks character in its final moments and moves into one of the most distressing codas in movie history, the reality of what we've seen fictionalized hits home with devastating impact.
For most of its running time, though, BlacKkKlansman is focused on a good story told well: Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is hired by the police department in Colorado Springs to be its first black officer. He's relegated, though, to the records room, which he hates. When civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael comes to town, though, the police chief uses Stallworth as a way to learn more about "black power" groups and their alleged plans for violence.
Stallworth uses his new assignment against a different race-based group, though: He makes the jaw-dropping move of calling the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan ... and gets invited to meet in person. And there's the problem that drives the movie: Stallworth teams up with another investigator, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to be the face to Stallworth's "white" voice. The ruse works shockingly well, as the pair work their way into and up the chain of the KKK, ending at David Duke (Topher Grace), who urges Stallworth to become a card-carrying KKK member.
While Stallworth and Zimmerman work their plan, Stallworth also meets and begins to fall for a young student activist (Laura Harrier), who begins to suspect that Stallworth might be hiding a lot more than he lets on, even though he's getting more and more involved in the black power movement.
The two parallel stories, and the two parallel "Ron Stallworths," allow Lee to work both his camera and his editor, Barry Alexander Brown, in rich, rewarding ways -- and what's most compelling and surprising (though, given Lee's history, maybe shouldn't be) is how technically overwhelming BlacKkKlansman turns out to be.
One sequence, involving a KKK member, his wife and a bomb, is destined to be a classic of suspense filmmaking; another, which features the parallel activities of a KKK meeting, a screening of D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, and a riveting cameo by Harry Belafonte, is similarly strengthened by Lee's intense knowledge of filmmaking techniques. Watching BlacKkKlansman on the level of pure cinema is as rewarding as being told its astonishing tale.
Never one to back away from challenging his audience, Lee infuses BlacKkKlansman with two of the most famous movies in film history: Gone With the Wind and Nation, which we're reminded was the first real Hollywood blockbuster. The way Lee uses them here is disturbing and eye-opening: He's using film to remind us of the unique power of film to influence and mold even the most hateful thinking. Lee, America's foremost black filmmaker, is aware that his own art form and even his own career have been shaped by visions of shocking racism, violence and hatred.
And after infusing BlacKkKlansman with sly references to "making America great again" and keeping "America first" throughout the movie, Lee digs right in to the shape of American race relations today, with an ending that leaves an audience entirely speechless. At least for now, BlacKkKlansman has the last word on such a sorrowful subject.
But it's also such a perfectly entertaining movie -- clever, funny, swift, engaging -- which is an accomplishment it's impossible to overlook. Its only weak spot is the performance of Driver, who never seems to match the enormous energy of the rest of the cast and of the filmmaker; he has a tendency to seem listless, even when the movie calls for him to be at his most passionate.
Even so, when he and Washington finally end up in the same room with David Duke and the KKK, it's a scene of crackling vibrancy. The two halves of Ron Stallworth finally join as one in a sequence that brings together everything -- story, technique, humor, tension, rage, pain -- that is at the heart of BlacKkKlansman.
Viewed August 25, 2018 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
2010
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