A plain-clothed African-American police officer chases after a white woman who has just planted a bomb on the hood of an African-American woman’s car. He tackles her to the ground trying to arrest her. A police car pulls up.
Two white officers emerge with their guns drawn as the woman falsely shouts, “Rape!” Trying to show them his badge, the African-American officer is subjected to a series of kicks from his white peers. This happened in the ‘70s, though. It’s a product of the times, right?
With the fact that when you turn on the nightly news nowadays, there is a new mother, father, sister or brother mourning the tragic loss of a loved one, how can we be sure?
That plain-clothed officer was Ron Stallworth, and “BlacKkKlansman” is the stylistically titled adaptation of Stallworth’s book of the same name. The great Spike Lee’s newest film, co-produced with “Get Out”’s Jordan Peele, tells the improbable true story of Stallworth’s infiltration of a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, membership card and all.
Stallworth (John David Washington) joins the Colorado Springs Police Department and, at first, is relegated to working in the records department. After withstanding multiple barrages of his race being labeled as “toads” by an unapologetically racist patrolman named Landers (Frederick Weller), Stallworth’s chief (Robert John Burke) assigns him to work with officers Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) and Jimmy Creek (Michael Buscemi).
Stallworth goes undercover at a local rally, courtesy of the Colorado College Black Student Union, featuring an address by civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael (Corey Hawkins). There, he meets the president of the union Patrice (Laura Harrier) and “gathers intel” for the department as Carmichael speaks to the students.
Shortly after this, Stallworth is reassigned to the intelligence division. While sitting at his desk and casually reading the paper one day, an ad for the Ku Klux Klan catches his eye. On a whim, he cold-calls the number. Stallworth proceeds to unleash a torrent of racist rhetoric that obviously leaves the stereotypical Klansman on the other end salivating at the mouth.
After the local chapter leader Walter Breachway (Ryan Eggold) agrees to meet with him, Stallworth realizes he had given his own name. As a result, he assumes the role of the voice of Ron Stallworth, and Zimmerman serves as “white, in-the-flesh” Ron out in public.
Zimmerman meets fellow Klansmen, including Felix (Jasper Paakkonen) and Ivanhoe (Paul Walter Hauser) and assimilates into their group. Soon, both he and Stallworth uncover a nefarious plot to coincide with the visit of KKK head David Duke (Topher Grace).
Washington, son of two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington, is cool, savvy and smooth as Stallworth. He exudes the façade well as he clearly struggles internally with toeing the line between doing his job and his earnest desire to fight alongside his peers for their rights. His telephone exchanges with Grace’s Duke are laugh-out-loud ridiculous as he feeds lines to the aloof Imperial Grand Wizard.
Harrier’s Patrice is sassy and smart. She knows what’s at stake, and she and Washington play off each other well. Additionally, Paakkonen appropriately seethes as the bloodthirsty semblance of the “old Klan,” and Hauser plays an utter buffoon almost as masterfully as his portrayal of Tonya Harding stooge Shawn Eckardt in “I, Tonya.” Hopefully, he doesn’t get typecast.
The film has a truly compelling juxtaposition of two scenes that cannot be ignored. In a fitting cameo, longtime civil rights activist and Martin Luther King, Jr. confidant, Harry Belafonte plays Jerome Turner, who speaks to an assembly of the Colorado College Black Student Union about the lynching of Jesse Washington in 1916.
As Turner recounts the despicable details, Duke, Zimmerman, Felix, Ivanhoe and others yell out in glee as they watch D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation.”
Not only the hypocrisy but the true colors of the Klan are revealed. Duke wanted “national director” to supplant the title “Imperial Wizard” and “organization” to replace “the Klan.” It’s like painting a horse black and white and calling it a zebra.
Fittingly, the film concludes with footage from the Charlottesville demonstrations, riots and attacks, and victim Heather Heyer is remembered.
It is over 40 years later, but how close have we come to being truly united as a nation?
“BlacKkKlansman” displays such an undeniable relevance to that uncomfortable question.
BlacKkKlansman came out Aug. 10, so there’s only a short time left to see it in theaters!
