In 1 9 7 2, Ron Stallworth, the first African American police officer in Colorado Springs, is ordered to spy on the rally of black rights activist Kwame Ture. There, Ron meets Patrice, president of Black Student Union, and starts dating her. However, Ron soon gets an even more explosive assignment: to spy on the Ku Klux Klan. Accidentally using his real name during a phone call with KKK member Walter, Ron persuades police officer Flip, a Jew, to pose as "Ron Stallworth" and personally meet KKK members. When KKK leader David Duke arrives to town to hold a speech, Ron is assigned as his bodyguard. A KKK member, a former convict, identifies Flip as a police officer. Ron stops a bomb assassination of Patrice. However, the superiors at the police department order Ron and Flip to end their investigation and destroy all the evidence they gathered against KKK.
Excellent detective investigation crime drama "BlacKkKlansman" (the title is sligthly misleading since the African American police officer Ron Stallworth is a fictional member of the KKK in name and phone voice only) is a gripping historical account of how an African American and a Jewish police officer infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, and it is invigorated by strong performances by John David Washington and Adam Driver. Spike Lee's direction and meditation on racism and xenophobia is luckily much more concise, objective in this edition, avoiding some of his previous too preachy or blatant accusations, and thus one gets the impression that every scene has its why and because, whereas the storyline is contemplative, true and genuine. Some memorable moments include Ron attending an African American rally where Kwame Ture delivers a strong speech: "It's time for you to stop running away from being black." Another is when the police chief comments on both Ron and Flip pretending to be Ron Stallworth: "Anything happens to one of my men, there won't be two Ron Stallworths. There'll be none." The scene when Ron is shocked when an FBI agent briefs him that they discovered the real names of two KKK members, and that two of them work in NORAD. The suspensful situation of a KKK meeting in a house where a suspicious KKK member wants to see if Flip is circumcised, so Ron interupts by randomly throwing something through the window and running away, causing a commotion. The only flaw is the anticlimactic ending: indeed, this is what happened in real life, but it still feels like all their efforts were wasted. Furthermore, there is an unnecessary epilogue featuring the 2017 Charlottesville car attack and speeches by then President Donald Trump which feels superfluous and like a stretch when connecting white supremacy in 2017 and white supremacy 45 years earlier as Ron Stallworth investigated it. It feels rather like a different movie that needs to be covered on its own terms. Otherwise, "BlacKkKlansman" is a remarkably well made film and reconstruction of an historical event.
Grade:+++
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