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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