We skipped BlacKkKlansman (2019) a number of times, ordering the disc, not watching and sending it back. Partly because Ms. Spenser is sick of Adam Driver - he’s in everything! But we finally watched it.
Set in the late 70s, it stars John David Washington as Ron Stallsworth, the real-life first black police officer in Colorado Springs. When assigned to infiltrate a Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) rally, he meets and is attracted to political activist Laura Harrier. Soon, they are dating.
Looking for a meatier role, Washington calls a KKK recruitment ad. With his mastery of “white voice”, he talks his way into an invitation. Since he won’t be able to attend in person, he convinces officer Adam Driver into doing that part of the undercover job. And it works - Driver winds up meeting the scary and sometimes dopey local klan, while Washington works his way up to talking to David Duke.
Most of this movie is just a good tale well told. Politics are kept to “racists are stupid and bad, tolerance is hard but wins in the end.” Washington plays Stallworth as a fairly conservative black man - he had always wanted to be a policeman. He doesn’t think Ture and Harrier should be persecuted, but he doesn’t want to see any race war or revolution. Even his accent is basic midwestern aw-shucks. And in the end, the good guys win. The klan is embarrassed and prevented from blowing up enemies and burning crosses, and the racist cop is caught and punished.
And then Stallworth is taken off the case, and the files are ordered destroyed. Then there is a short epilogue, showing the current state of race relations. This includes Black Lives Matter and the murder of a counter-protester at the Unite the Right rally. So, a fun comedy, as long as you don’t think about it too much. But director Spike Lee makes you think.
In conclusion, after this and The Dead Don’t Die, Ms. Spenser now likes Adam Driver.
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