Not the best film of 2018 but the most 2018 film in tone.

Rating: 10/10 (10 December 2018)

I don't generally liked Spike Lee films; I find them often overstuffed and inaccessible. They come across to me as if Lee is trying to say too many things at once.
However, BlacKkKlansman (while still having these features) is easily my favorite film by Lee and I hope it does very well on the award circuit. The screenplay's handling of the story is 2018 in its tragicomic tone. There are a ton of scenes that I swear I am going to laugh the next time I watch instead of crying this time. It brilliantly leaves a lot of tensions unresolved about how people should respond to systemic racism. Lee's visual flourishes work for once and the (mild spoiler) Birth of the Nation/Lynching story scene is some of the best editing I have seen since ROTK's Charge of Faramir. That sequence captures the damnable interplay of rhetoric/media and systemic racism perfectly.
Washington gives quite an understated performance that I think really works ironically for the tone of the film. Driver is just memorizing as Flip. But to me the real standout is Topher Grace as David Duke. I don't know if if it is casting or acting but that choice and performance is 2018 in a nutshell. Tragicomic made flesh.
Everyone should see this film. That ending is a gut punch.