If I am not for myself, who will be? If I am for myself alone, who am I? If not now, when?

Rating: 8/10 (27 January 2019)

Finally director Spike Lee is being nominated for an Oscar for this troubling film based on a true story. The film is based on Ron Stallworth's book about his experience with the Colorado Ku Klux Klan and the reenactment of the story is very well presented, despite the gut-wrenching events it relates.
In the early 1970s, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, son of Denzel Washington) is hired as the first black officer in the Colorado Springs, Colorado police department. Stallworth is initially assigned to work in the records room, where he faces racial slurs from his coworker Andy Landers (Frederick Welller). Stallworth requests a transfer to go undercover, convinces his Jewish colleague (Adam Driver) to go undercover as a surrogate white supremacist, and is assigned to infiltrate a local rally at which national civil rights leader Kwame Ture (birth name Stokely Carmichael - portrayed by Corey Hawkins) is to give a speech. At the rally, Stallworth meets Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier), the president of the black student union at Colorado College. While taking Ture to his hotel, Patrice is stopped by patrolman Andy Landers, a corrupt, racist officer in Stallworth's precinct, who threatens Ture and sexually assaults Patrice.
The plot rambles a bit to include a terrifying overture of Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard (Alec Baldwin) offering history and a racist tirade, the influence of David Duke (Topher Grace), and Klansmen Walter Breachway (Ryan Eggold), Felix Kendrickson (Jasper Pääkkönen) and his wife Connie (Ashlie Atkinson) and Ivanhoe (Paul Walter Hauser), and ends with the 2017 Charlottesville riots (actual footage) with neo-Nazis and white supremacists marching the streets, and some disturbing moments from Donald Trump and the real David Duke.
Tough to watch but important to see.