The Real Undercover Brother

Rating: 7/10 (22 February 2019)

Sometimes I have no idea what to say about a film after watching it. Then after waiting until the next day, I can't figure it out either. My writing of this BlacKkKlansman review feels like that.
I did really like this film, I am honestly surprised there are not more films like this being made in the heat of today's racially charged climate. Yet, while watching this film, which shows glimpses of powerful imagery, camaraderie, and evil, I found myself a bit detached from the emotional weight of this movie. In fact, I will say other than that real-life footage at the end of the film BlacKkKlansman felt like a bit of a let down at parts. To be fair, this issue is probably on me. I was expecting a film that was going to give me that sick stomach feeling that I got watching that end of movie real footage. Yet, I didn't. I did not want to see race violence to the extreme but I had expected it with the subject matter of this movie. There are scenes that are generally frightening, though they are mixed in with a lot of light-hearted moments, and sometimes they just took me out of the experience.
Ugh, reading this back makes me feel like I am advocating for more violence, which I am not. I just felt like the emotional impact of this was lost a bit in the light-hearted moments. Also, Ron's white guy voice sounds like Eddie Giffin's white guy voice in Undercover Brother, which didn't help.
Other than the mixed emotions of the tone, I have nothing to complain about. The casting, the direction, the story itself all works and as I said before I enjoyed it for the most part. I just felt a bit underwhelmed at times. Still, this is an easy recommend. There is a lot too it, and hopefully, you will enjoy it more than I did.