An African-American police officer from Colorado teams up with a white counterpart in an audacious double-act to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan. Writer-director Spike Lee picked up his first ever Oscar for his adapted screenplay based on a true story.
It’s the early 1970s, and Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, Love Beats Rhymes) is the first African-American detective to serve in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Determined to make a name for himself, Stallworth sets out to infiltrate and expose the local Ku Klux Klan. He soon recruits a more seasoned colleague, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), into the undercover investigation of a lifetime as the pair join forces to impersonate a new KKK member. Topher Grace co-stars as KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, on a mission to present a friendly, corporate face to the violent, racist organisation.
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In the time since Donald Trump was elected US President, a number of theories have emerged within the greater public consciousness to justify this turn of events: it was the Russians; it was Hillary’s emails; it was the weird US electoral system that no one really understands. Underlying each of these explanations, of course, is the myth: that no one could have seen this horrible situation coming. Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman is an indictment of this myth.
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With his racially-charged historical comedy BlacKkKlansman, veteran firebrand filmmaker Spike Lee finds himself in something resembling the political center – at least in relative terms. Adapted from a non-fiction book by Ron Stallworth, the director offsets the gritty texture and hand-trembling impact of his most memorable work (including Do the Right Thing, Clockers and Chi-Raq) with droll commentary about the cyclical nature of bureaucracy – a la Burn After Reading – and a farce-like plot that ping-pongs between absurd and shocking situations.
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Lee never takes his eye off the connecting thread between the events of 1978 and the present. The result is one of his most flat-out entertaining films in years, and also one of his most uncompromising.
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As much a compelling black empowerment story as it is an electrifying commentary on the problems of African-American representation across more than a century of cinema.
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BlacKkKlansman's joke is an indictment of complacency, particularly that of white liberals who'd rather not confront the distressing fact that not much has changed in 40 years, beyond a re-styling of old, old ideology.
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Spike Lee hits his targets effectively enough - again and again. They keep popping back up like the targets in a fairground shooting gallery, and get shot back down again with a clang.
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An engaging, hilarious, still topical-as-hell forty years later and ringingly smart film from the startlingly prolific and restless Lee.
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It is all a funny, pointed experience until the spine-chillingly poetic coda, which hurls us into the modern-day and renders the officers' victories almost totally hollow, calling into question the ability to do good in a fundamentally flawed system.
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The more I think about this film, the deeper it seeps into my consciousness. So simple, so clever, so entertaining as it delivers a king punch to the solar plexus.
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If "BlacKkKlansman" is not above turning its characters into mouthpieces for its ideas, it wards off excessive didacticism by giving those ideas a heady flow and a sustained pulse. There's real, expressive joy in its anger.
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Lee's most flat-out entertaining film in quite a long time, as well as his most commercial.
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A straight up, fierce, political polemical from an acknowledged master of the form, who has not and will not run out of reasons to be justifiably angry.
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A crusading Spike Lee is often the best Spike Lee. He's a powerful artist and when he has a lot to say, as in the case with BlacKkKlansman, he simply won't let you forget it.
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