Could have been much better

Rating: 6/10 (30 August 2018)

BlackkKlansman has a great cast, wonderful sets and costumes and raises some important social issues.
It's a shame that the script is so undeveloped. Many of the scenes go on way too long, or don't have much purpose, and there is too much dialogue. Generally the film isn't entertaining enough - too much talk and not enough action. Which is a pity, because the plot is great - a black police detective Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan by phone, and sends a Jewish fellow detective, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) to go undercover to Klan meetings, under Stallworth's name. Washington is fantastic - intelligent, laidback, bold and sensitive. As is Driver, who must act like a white supremicist as the Klan grill him about his views on blacks and Jews. As the black student leader Patrice, Laura Harrier is fabulous, although often she's more the love interest, and her love affair with Stallworth seems more a series of cute scenes that don't amount to much. The film's ending is confusing, and finally cute, and isn't very smooth.
Stallworth deserves more recognition for his courage - there's a great scene where he applies to be his city's first black police officer, and the film does portray some of the immense danger of that, when even some of his workmates were hostile to him, and he had to straddle his black social life and the white police culture. I guess the filmmakers at least had a go at covering some of the myriad issues relating to racism in America. But if they had taken more time, they could have made a really good film.