Spike Lee at his best

Rating: 8/10 (12 April 2019)

Based on true events: Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) was a real-life police officer in Colorado Springs in the 1970s. He was notable for being the first black officer on the force. He begins a project to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan on the telephone using his 'white voice' (this seems to be a trend in movies this year - see "Sorry to Bother You"). Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) is his colleague who shows up in person to meet the KKK as the same fictional character.
This film took various liberties to dramatize events. Among the biggest were the superb climax (forgivable for its brilliant execution and build-up) and the fact that the in-person decoy was of Jewish heritage. The latter is a little less forgivable as it seemed too far-fetched as well as dangerously stupid to select a Jewish man to risk his life when a more "Aryan" colleague would have been appropriate (as it was in real life). Despite this questionable fictionalization, it actually succeeds in making the film an intense pins-and-needles thriller throughout. The tension is so strong that the occasional lapses into humour are hilarious and very welcome relief.
"BlacKkKlamsan" courageously goes to the worst side of humanity's underbelly. There is little violence in action but a lot of it in spoken words. It succeeds in making the audience truly uncomfortable as it gives Klan members a lot of time on screen - more than most films would. Rather than just exposing them as slimy rednecks (they were), they are shown as people who spoke of things important to them much like "normal" people would when speaking of events such as a wedding, a fishing expedition, or a charitable event. Their words are terrible but the way they speak them is cringeworthy in how they sound live average folks.
As mentioned, the build-up to the climax is superb. It includes back-and-forth viewings between two large gatherings: one, a black liberation meeting; and the other a KKK gathering as members watch "Birth of a Nation" and react loudly to it like they are watching a football game.
This fine film is directed by Spike Lee. It's great to see him at the same level again as he showed with "Do the Right Thing" (1989) and "Malcolm X" (1992). He's truly a thoughtful person with a lot of talent.
Coincidentally, I saw this film just hours after learning of the mass murders at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. As the sad saying goes: the more things change, the more they stay the same.