The Klux of the Matter

Oscar contending movies tend to come out a little later in the year than this, but that hasn't stopped Spike Lee's newest film, BlacKkKlansman from receiving buzz. It's the based-on-true-events story of Ron Stallworth, the first black detective to work for the Colorado Springs police department. It follows Stallworth's 1970s sting on the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, infiltrating their operation on the phone as a white partner poses as him for in-person meetings.

The movie is generally entertaining. It treats a serious subject seriously, yet manages to be somehow light at times. It does this by exposing the idiot underbelly of the Klan, showcasing their members as largely inept and laughable figures... and in doing so, showing their cause to be every bit as foolish. The KKK can be both dangerous and stupid at the same time.

Above all of this, this movie set in the 1970s offers sharp commentary on 2018. It's arguably subtle at first (and just as arguably not), with carefully crafted lines of dialogue that speak to what the future (our present) could be like. But any veneer of subtlety drops away as the film unspools. The script makes a very compelling case that then is now in America, in terms of race relations. And it punctuates it all right before the end credits roll by including real footage of former KKK leader David Duke, Donald Trump, the events of Charlottesville, and more. Man, I hope by the end of the movie that no viewer needed it to be spelled out this directly for them... though the gut punch of seeing it is undeniable nonetheless.

But the movie does drag a bit at times. Several scenes simply feel too conventional for it. There's a lot of early time spent on the hazing of Stallworth as a rookie detective -- general cop genre stuff that doesn't always speak as directly to the issue of race at the core of the film. There's also quite a lot of time given to a romantic subplot, and while the love interest Patrice is used well when articulating a different philosophy on how to achieve equality, things drag when the character is sometimes forced into a generic girlfriend box.

Star John David Washington is a compelling lead (something of a chip off the ol' block of his father, Denzel). Adam Driver is also good as his partner, Flip Zimmerman, a soft and sympathetic character who has to adopt a hard shell to go undercover. The central conceit, however, that both these characters are pretending to be the same person, is pretty laughable. Neither actor makes much of an effort to sound like the other in scenes where it would matter (despite a scene that's all about practicing this). Perhaps this is deliberate, another joke on the stupidity of the movie's racist characters, that they're fooled even though the two sound nothing alike?

Despite the few shortcomings I wish could be shored up, I did enjoy the film overall. I give BlacKkKlansman a B. We'll see in a few months if the Oscar talk actually pans out.