BlacKkKlansman 6/10
Last night Cam and I went and saw BlacKkKlansman over at the Arclight in Hollywood. We were gonna maybe see Sorry To Bother You together since we both saw it separately an loved it but I wanted to see something new. I kinda wish we had saw STBY again. Not that BlacKkKlansman was terrible because it was not. It is just the more I sit on it the more I realize how much better it could have been as a film and social commentary. There will be a bunch of spoilers for this kinda sort of true story so don't read this if unless you are one of those people. This movie manages to shoot itself in the foot on multiple occasions by trying to do too much, not enough, and Spike Lee adding his special sauce which at this point is almost a parody of itself when done incorrectly.
In the late 70's Ron Stallworth played by John David Washington gets a job as the first Black detective in Colorado Springs. He is given a lot of shit but not as much as I thought they would show. Being what he is where he is when it is everyone in town should know who he is and his face. There is one cop in particular who is cartoonishly racist but I'll get to him later. Rather quickly Stallworth wants to go undercover. There is no training shown or anything but he is sent to get information at a rally held by the Black student union. He goes and there is a fine ass woman Patrice Dumas played by Laura Harrier. She was in Spiderman: Homecoming. There is another actress in the movie named Damaris Lewis that has more of the attitude that I wish Patrice's character had. For Patrice to have been the head of the Black student union there was something almost too young about her. She and a group end up pulled over by the same shitty cop named Landers and groped and threatened.
After this Stallworth is promoted and finds an ad in the paper to join the Ku Klux Klan. He called pretending to be a White dude but gives his real name using a “white voice.” This is not Sorry To Bother You. Okay. Knowing his Black ass can't make the meeting he just planned he gets Flip Zimmerman played by Adam Driver involved. Flip meets with a dude and is liked by the rest of the group except for a guy named Felix who is obviously crazy. After a few meet ups it is known that they plan an attack. The police chief takes the Black student union more seriously than these Klan members who happen to have actual guns, bombs, and members in very high positions. Stallworth gets his membership rushed through by talking to David Duke played by Topher Grace.
Stallworth who is now all in love with Patrice has not told her his actual job which is a terrible conflict of interest. If he were playing her for reals this would be fine but he actually has feelings for her. His job was to get information on her plans and get it shut down. So he's pretty shitty. Zimmerman, who is Jewish, talks about how he has never thought about the fact that he is Jewish as much as he has now that he is hanging with Klan members. The rest of the movie is a series of near misses, chases, and humor at odd places and a few ending that had me feeling like shit when I left the theater. I'll explain why.
During a bar scene at the end Stallworth and Patrice get Landers to brag about his sexually assaulting Patrice and the fact that he can do it anytime he wants. They reveal he is being recorded and the bar is full of cops and he is arrested to laughter and cheers. He's drunk, I get it. But he didn't now that the bar he was drunk at was full of coworkers? And the scene was not funny. Movie keeps going. The police chief tells Stallworth that everything they did must be covered up. Stallworth and his crew are upset because the Klan will continue to operate leading to Stallworth calling David Duke and telling him he's Black. Laughter all around. Movie still goes on. Stallworth and Patrice hanging out and she lets him know that she can not bone down with a cop. There is a knock on the door and we get the Spike Lee camera shot. You know what that is even if you do not know what that is.
It leads to a burning cross surrounded by Klan members. The movie, like this review, keeps going.
The rest of the movie is footage of rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia with protesters being attacked, racist rallies, the real David Duke talking, and if you have never seen a crowd of people run over by a car in your life you will not be able to say that after seeing this movie. You get to see it happen a couple of times and even close ups and stills of people being mowed down. It ends with a memorial for Heather Heyer who was killed during that attack. Given everything I have said about this movie you would think that I hated it but I did not. I liked the movie but should have left earlier. It became Gone Girl at a certain point. I know the world is full of shitty people that do shitty things which is why I barely watch the news so getting to see dozens of people attacked and fighting in real life on a big screen is not something I ever want to see.
There is some good acting in this movie and music but I can't ignore the problems this movie had. The pacing was odd and at times especially at the end it felt like a lot of people had ideas to wrap it all up and none of them were turned down. The best way for me to describe this movie is awkward disguised as satire at times. The look is good even though I know I nitpick things like afros being too perfect. There is one Klan member that is so cartoonish that you'd never in your life trust him with private information let alone a gun. Really liked Driver's performance and they touched on his conflict but not nearly enough for such a long movie. There is a lot of alluding to Trump that got some laughs out of the audience that yanked me right out the movie. With all the movies being made by Black directors and writers lately where Blacks are allowed to get weird now this makes Lee seem old. Sorry To Bother You, Black Panther, and Get Out felt like steps forward while Lee is like “Let me remind you to feel bad.” Again. Not a bad film. Just too many missteps for me to suggest you see this in theaters.
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