Movie Review: BlackKKlansman

BlacKKKlansman (2018) 

Directed by Spike Lee

Written by Spike Lee 

Starring John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace, Laura Harrier Ryan Eggold 

Release Date August 10th, 2018

Published August 9th, 2018

BlacKKKlansman is one of the most ambitious and daring movies to come down the pike in quite some time. This story about a real-life Colorado Springs, Colorado cop who decided to take on the Ku Klux Klan is bold, audacious, funny and deeply compelling. That is is also a biting satire of our current political climate also serves to remind us why Spike Lee remains one of the most vital and necessary filmmakers.

BlacKKKlansman stars John David Washington, Denzel’s son, as Ron Stallworth, a man fresh out of college and eager to become a police detective. His ambition brings him to Colorado Springs, Colorado where he seizes his opportunity to quickly move up the ranks by volunteering for undercover work. Whether intentional or not, Ron takes advantage of the racism of the department as they need someone young and black to go undercover at meetings of so-called black radicals.

After succeeding in his first undercover gig, Ron is fully promoted to detective in the Intelligence division. It is here where the story of BlacKKKlansman kicks into gear. Seeing an ad in the paper for the Ku Klux Klan recruitment drive, Ron decides to pick up the phone and find out how the Klan recruits. Ron quickly ingratiates himself to the local Klan leader, Walter (Ryan Eggold) who invites him to a meeting.

Naturally, Ron himself can’t go undercover at the meeting, so, he’s partnered with Flip (Adam Driver). Together they will catfish the Klan into believing that Ron Stallworth is a former Vietnam veteran eager for the chance to be part of the coming race war on the side of ‘The Organization’ as they call themselves when in public so as not to arouse suspicion and maintain the anonymity that comes with their traditional hood and shroud.

Where the story goes from there you will need to see for yourself. I will tell you that the scope of the story includes the longtime Grand Wizard of the KKK, David Duke, here played by Topher Grace in a performance that truly takes the piss out of Duke and his self-righteous attempts at mainstreaming his hateful rhetoric. Grace is terrific at being the butt of the film’s best gags, especially the final payoff laugh which sends the crowd home happy.

This is however, J.D Washington’s show and boy is this kid ready for stardom. Yes, you can definitely hear some of his dad’s voice, his unique inflection, coming from J.D but he demonstrates here, with the help of Spike Lee, that he is fully his own man. This is a breakout, charismatic, a star is born, kind of leading man performance. Washington is funny, confident, bold and sympathetic and yet far from perfect, still wet behind the ears but eager to learn in charming fashion.

Adam Driver as well is fantastic in BlacKKKlansman. Driver’s choice of roles is so smart, always seeming to choose roles that play to his unique strengths. Many of BlacKKKlansman’s best scenes are played in Driver’s eyes, with the thinly veiled control he has over the contempt he feels for the Klan he’s pretending to be part of and for himself for having to spout the racist nonsense back at these redneck losers. It’s a performance of measured cool and Driver is phenomenal.

Spike Lee hasn’t felt this much like the Spike Lee of old since 2002’s 25th Hour. This is Spike once again on an epic scale. This is Spike indulging his style once again rather than pushing his instincts aside to make something mainstream ala 2006’s Inside Man, a fine movie, but not a Spike Lee movie, and 2013’s Oldboy, a film idea doomed at conception. BlacKKKlansman takes us back to when Spike Lee was more than just a director, he was a creative life force.

BlacKKKlansman is vital and angry, funny and dangerous. The film engages and repels audiences, it challenges you and ingratiates you. If you are uncomfortable with political movies, BlacKKKlansman is not for you as it is a film that challenges you with parallels to today’s politics and the dangerous attempts too many people in the political realm have made to equate the hate of bigots and racists with the anger of people suffering from the hate of bigots and racists.

BlacKKKlansman is bold and fearless filmmaking filled with style and humor, fiery polemical rhetoric and damn good storytelling. BlacKKKlansman is a Spike Lee Joint as vital and exciting as anything he’s made since Do the Right Thing, arguably his one true masterpiece. BlacKKKlansman is also simply one of the finest movies of 2018.

Movie Review Inside Man

Inside Man (2006) 

Directed by Spike Lee 

Written by Russell Gewirtz

Starring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer

Release Date March 24th, 2006 

Published March 23rd, 2006 

Spike Lee is unquestionably my favorite director and, in my opinion, the finest filmmaker working today. His films focus on important topics--sometimes directly, sometimes esoterically. His latest film, however, is not his usual timely topical drama. In Inside Man Spike Lee crafts his first mainstream thriller and despite its lack of relevance, Inside Man is Spike Lee at his usually crafty and skillful best.

On a typical day in New York City an indistinct truck from a painting company pulls up in front of First Manhattan Bank. A group of people in masks jump out, gather their equipment and head inside the bank. We already know they are not here to paint anything. These 'painters' are part of what we are told is the 'the perfect bank robbery.'

Clive Owen stars as Dalton Russell. He is the leader of this group of bank robbers in the new thriller Inside Man and he is the only robber we will get to know throughout the film. His accomplices are innumerable and so well hidden you will have a hard time keeping track of how many of them there are. One or two of them strip off the painting gear and mingle with the crowd and because their looks are so indistinct, they easily slip into the crowd of bank customers who are now hostages.

Opposite Russell and his cohorts is a clever detective and hostage negotiator named Keith Frazier, played by Denzel Washington. In a few quick, establishing scenes we find that Detective Frazier is under investigation by internal affairs over some missing money in a drug case. Thus, why he and his partner, played by the excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor, are not the boss's first choice to take over the hostage situation now unfolding at First Manhattan Bank. Add to that the fact that this will be their first hostage negotiation as the lead detectives, and you can understand why the department is nervous.

Finally, there is one more angle to play out in the elaborate and clever plot of Inside Man. This one involves a woman of mysterious political influence, Madeline White, played by Jodie Foster. Her job is to help high-profile millionaires keep hidden deep, dark and destructive secrets. Her new client? The owner of First Manhattan Bank Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer).

Now aware that his bank is being robbed, Mr. Case is deathly concerned about something he has hidden in a safe deposit box in the bank. He knows Madeline only by reputation. She fixes big problems by any means necessary and seems to have no moral hang ups. By the time the story plays out she will have used her considerable influence to get a face to face meeting with the bank robber Dalton Russell and live to tell about it.

Directed by Spike Lee, Inside Man does not reinvent the wheel in terms of suspense or the heist genre. What it does is take the familiar elements of the genre and simply do them better than other similar films. Working from a clever, but not exactly groundbreaking, script by first-time screenwriter Russell Gewirtz, Lee directs his first straight-edge thriller with little or no direct social commentary, his usual milieu.

The trick Spike Lee pulls off in Inside Man is bringing his considerable talent and intelligence cache to bear on a very familiar plot and genre. The film works because Spike Lee is a very talented director who knows how to build tension and suspense with his camera and by allowing his talented cast to do what they do without the interference of typical plot points.

Yes, those typical plot points, the negotiation, the red herrings, et al, are still there but the actors are not required to play to those elements. Rather they play around them allowing us to bring our own experience with this type of film into our understanding of the plot. Listen to the actors casually reference other so called heist pictures. Consider those mentions as signposts reminding us in the audience we are watching a heist picture. Meanwhile the actors play to the beat of their characters which gain depth and complexity with each passing scene.

Inside Man is a brilliantly constructed thriller patched together by arguably the best director working today. It serves not only as a wildly entertaining genre film, but also a reminder of Spike Lee's talent, which has gone atrociously underappreciated in recent years as films as disparate and exceptional as Bamboozled, She Hate Me and 25th Hour have come and gone with little notice. Watch Inside Man and remember, Spike Lee is still a genius.

Many indie artists have talked about the few mainstream compromises they must make to finance more relevant projects. The dichotomy comes down to one for the suits at the studio and then one for me. Until his recent box-office struggles, Spike Lee never had to make such a compromise. If Inside Man is the kind of studio compromise that Spike Lee must make to get his more relevant features made, then bring on the compromise.

Lee's skill with the thriller genre more than rivals his skill with social commentary.