After three decades, there is still fire in Spike Lee

Rating: Null/10 (24 January 2019)

Spike Lee's "Blackkklansman", a contender in last year's Cannes Festival, just became one of the nominees for Best Picture in Oscar this year, expectedly. "Do the right thing" (1989) was probably the movie that established Lee as an auteur director, in both artistic flare and moral conviction. Take away the racial politics element, however, "Blackkklansman" is very much an entertaining police undercover yarn, with more accent on the comic than on the thriller flavor. The humor, however, is double-edged. It is probably even more effective than graphic violence as a vehicle for condemning bigotry. The ridicule and absurdity get the message through, in "Do the right thing", and again in "Blackkklansman". But make no mistake about it. In "Blackkklansman", Lee is not pulling any punches. The hammering comes at the end, after the main body of the movie.
For those (probably very few) who noticed, the movie actually started on a quiet, pensive note - a few bars from Stephen Foster's languid Negro folk song Swanee River (Old Folks at Home). What comes next wakes you up. In a sort of prologue, Alec Baldwin in the form of a character called Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard, a white supremist, delivers an infuriating propaganda speech that make you feel completely disgusted. That is exactly the intention. The effect of this fictional opening is surpassed only by the real-life closing. But first, the main body of the story.

Based on true events in the 1970s, the narration starts with Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), the first Black police officer in Colorado Spring Police Department, reporting to work on his first day. He soon gets bored with duties at the record library which is customarily assigned to rookies, irrespective of ethnic background. A bright young man brimming with self-confidence, he soon asks for a transfer to undercover assignments that are more challenging. "I'll shave and even take out the natural if I have to", the latter referring to his beautiful Afro hairstyle. It does not take too long for him to get his wish. Ron is teamed up with Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) and Jimmy Creek (Michael Buscemi), two worthy partners, for undercover assignments.
The fun starts when with a flash of inspiration upon noticing a add from an "organization" which he immediately recognizes as the Ku Klux Klan, he calls to seek membership. "Fluent in both Queen's English and jive" (the first one I interpret as meaning upper class American English, as real English hadn't been spoken in America for years, according to professor Higgins, "My Fair Lady"), Ron spills out over the phone a run of insults a white supremist would hurl at a Black man. The hilarity from watching this on screen is predictable but still irresistible. The KKK member on the other end of the line is completely sold and invites Ron to an interview.
Doubling the hilarity now is having two Ron Stallworths, one in the voice of the real guy, the other in the body of Flip, who manages to achieve a good resemblance of the voice and manner of speaking, after some hard practice. He is white alright, but also a Jew! Imagine the danger he puts himself into in trying to infiltrate the KKK. But Flip, first and foremost, is a true professional.
There's more: the infiltration has a parallel. Ron goes to a black activist meeting, where he meets pretty student union president Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier). The ensuing mutual romantic interest is also predictable.
As mentioned, the narrative moves forward very much in the vein of a mainstream undercover yarn. The thriller portion is contained, culminating in an anticlimax of a bomb threat and an assassination attempt. The levity portion is well managed, with the barbs on bigotry working very much like those in "Do the right thing". There is even crowd-pleasing poetic justice in seeing a racist policeman trapped and getting his due.
Toward the end, however, comes a powerful montage of two parallel running, intercutting sequences. In one meeting, Jerome Turner (Harry Belafonte) recounts, first-hand, the atrocities done to his handicapped friend Jesse years ago. In another meeting chaired by David Duke (Topher Grace), the KKK "grand wizard", Flip gets "baptized".
The movie closes with ample live footage from the 2017 events in Charlottesville, include Donald Trump's comments. That completes the left-right combo knockout punch.
Washington's confident, measured performance does credit to his father Denzel. Driver get a well-deserved Supporting nomination in Oscar.