These days, reality has become so outlandish that it routinely mops the floor with fiction. Political America has transformed itself into one surreal Can You Top This? Hold My Beer, occurrence after another. It'd be laughable, if not for the increasing rise of violence and barely suppressed entitlement of outright racism.
Incredibly, BlacKkKlansman is based on a true story. In the early nineteen seventies, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) finds himself the lone black detective on the Colorado Springs Police Department. Upon seeing a newspaper recruitment ad for the Ku Klux Klan, he impulsively calls the number and convinces the voice on the other end of the phone that he's a like-minded angry white man who's had it up to here with black people, and who's ready to do something about it.
A meeting is arranged - which Stallworth can't exactly attend himself. So he sends fellow detective Flip Zimmerman (The Last Jedi's Adam Driver) in his place - and infiltration begins. Washington (son of Denzel) is fantastic. Initially sent to keep tabs on a black student union event featuring former Black Panther Stokely Carmichael, Stallworth is supposed to just blend in and listen. But the civil rights movement can't help but make you question your place in the order of things - and Stallworth is a cop: "The Man," a "pig," - and Carmichael's renamed Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins) speaks with passion and truth about the injustice in their lives that resonates loudly with Stallworth - as does college activist Patrice (Spider-Man: Homecoming's Laura Harrier).
Driver is outstanding, as a Jewish detective who's neglected his sense of cultural self, now pushing it down even further to avoid exposure by his new Klan buddies. Ryan Eggold is all managerial earnestness as the President of the local chapter of "the organization," who man-crushes hard on new recruit Driver - but his right-hand man has plenty of doubts. Jasper Pääkkönen (TV's Vikings) is phenomenal as one of the more luridly charismatic and hateful characters we're likely to see onscreen this year. Pääkkönen weaves jealousy and suspicion into a truly disturbing role. Nominate this guy, seriously!
BlacKkKlansman is Spike Lee's most outright entertaining film since Inside Man, but probably his most important film since Do the Right Thing. While evoking the Serpico 70s, Lee (with screenwriters Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott) bravely uses the film to draw a straight and bloody line back to our here and now, with strident echoes of the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville. BlacKkKlansman is often hilarious, in an I, Tonya way, but the tone can whip unflinchingly into sickening portraits of unabashed racism and raw hatred that will turn your stomach. Hate inevitably leads to violence. Like Driver's character, the film may briefly convince you it's a wry comedy, but its agenda of social awareness and racial justice aims to infiltrate our sensibilities and when it finally emerges, the result is powerful and painful indeed. Easily one of the years best - and sadly, most necessary films. Not to be missed.
Incredibly, BlacKkKlansman is based on a true story. In the early nineteen seventies, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) finds himself the lone black detective on the Colorado Springs Police Department. Upon seeing a newspaper recruitment ad for the Ku Klux Klan, he impulsively calls the number and convinces the voice on the other end of the phone that he's a like-minded angry white man who's had it up to here with black people, and who's ready to do something about it.
A meeting is arranged - which Stallworth can't exactly attend himself. So he sends fellow detective Flip Zimmerman (The Last Jedi's Adam Driver) in his place - and infiltration begins. Washington (son of Denzel) is fantastic. Initially sent to keep tabs on a black student union event featuring former Black Panther Stokely Carmichael, Stallworth is supposed to just blend in and listen. But the civil rights movement can't help but make you question your place in the order of things - and Stallworth is a cop: "The Man," a "pig," - and Carmichael's renamed Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins) speaks with passion and truth about the injustice in their lives that resonates loudly with Stallworth - as does college activist Patrice (Spider-Man: Homecoming's Laura Harrier).
Driver is outstanding, as a Jewish detective who's neglected his sense of cultural self, now pushing it down even further to avoid exposure by his new Klan buddies. Ryan Eggold is all managerial earnestness as the President of the local chapter of "the organization," who man-crushes hard on new recruit Driver - but his right-hand man has plenty of doubts. Jasper Pääkkönen (TV's Vikings) is phenomenal as one of the more luridly charismatic and hateful characters we're likely to see onscreen this year. Pääkkönen weaves jealousy and suspicion into a truly disturbing role. Nominate this guy, seriously!
BlacKkKlansman is Spike Lee's most outright entertaining film since Inside Man, but probably his most important film since Do the Right Thing. While evoking the Serpico 70s, Lee (with screenwriters Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott) bravely uses the film to draw a straight and bloody line back to our here and now, with strident echoes of the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville. BlacKkKlansman is often hilarious, in an I, Tonya way, but the tone can whip unflinchingly into sickening portraits of unabashed racism and raw hatred that will turn your stomach. Hate inevitably leads to violence. Like Driver's character, the film may briefly convince you it's a wry comedy, but its agenda of social awareness and racial justice aims to infiltrate our sensibilities and when it finally emerges, the result is powerful and painful indeed. Easily one of the years best - and sadly, most necessary films. Not to be missed.
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