A Tense, Funny Ride through an Insane Story

Rating: 9/10 (14 September 2018)

Before this movie, I had never heard of the absolutely insane true story about a Black man essentially infiltrating the Ku Klux Klan. If you would have told me that it was a true story, I would have immediately said you were lying. But surely enough, based on the book written by none other than Ron Stallworth, this movie chronicles the insanity and also hilarity at the mere concept of this true story. The movie has extremely well pacing, there is never a dull moment. Spike Lee knows exactly what he wants to accomplish with each scene he presents, and boy does he exceed that accomplishment. Now that's not to say this movie is absolutely flawless, there were a few shots that I just found completely unnecessary and absolutely strange in the way that Lee directed it. Now, especially for me, weird shots in movies are not a bad thing at all, just look at Sorry to Bother You, my second favorite movie of the year, it was filled to the brim with weird shots that did not make any sense. However, in the context of that movie, it seemed to fit more. Because while Sorry to Bother You was definitely more geared towards comedy, this movie is first and foremost a drama/thriller. And therefore some of the bizarre stylistic choices just didn't work for me. However, that is my only complaint for the movie, the rest is absolutely amazing, from the acting to the character development, to the comedy. The one thing that I did not fully expect when walking into this film was purely how funny it was going to be. I expected there to be a few chuckles here and there but there were honestly some sequences that had me laughing out loud. One of the things I appreciate most about this movie is how Lee presents not only the KKK side of the "race war" but also the Black Panther side of things as well. He does not necessarily paint an obvious picture as to who is the bad guy and who is the good guy. There are three total groups that are looked at during the course of this movie, the Police force, the KKK, and the Black Panthers. And every single one of them has things that they were doing wrong. None of them were perfect, and I appreciated that view of things because it seemed more like Lee was just presenting history rather than trying to put his own biases into it. The acting here is all phenomenal, specifically from Topher Grace playing David Duke and Adam Driver as Flip. And of course, John David Washington did an excellent job as the main character. This movie, while somewhat flawed, is excellent and definitely up there in the list for movies of the year.