A film that's both a joy and very difficult to watch

Rating: 8/10 (22 August 2018)

Based on a true story, the first black detective at the Colorado Springs Police Department infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan with the help of a white undercover officer.
Not content with the battles portrayed on the screen between black civil rights groups and the Klan, Spike Lee has squared up against Donald Trump and the political state of America today. Throughout the film, there are not-so-subtle nods to the US President's rhetoric and how it echoes the KKK's leader David Duke: at one point he says he wants 'to make America achieve its greatness again' and chants 'America first!' during a speech.
The messages the film is trying to get across are not subtle, but it doesn't have to be when the messages have never been irrelevant. At one point, the true and horrific story of the public torture and execution of 17-year-old Jessie Washington in 1916 is told. This story is unfolding as the camera cuts back and forth to the Klan's initiation meeting which makes for a powerful scene of intense juxtaposition (Lee explained in the post-film Q&A that, ironically, this cross cutting technique was invented by the director of Birth of a Nation, an intensely racist pro-KKK 1915 film).
The final minutes are fearful to watch as Lee brings us to the present time and the last few shots (which I won't spoil here) left me with a genuine tear in my eye and an uneasy feeling in one of the most basic, primitive part of my being - fear for the minds of my fellow man and the state of the world I'm meant to be leaving to my children.
Best Quote: "America would never elect someone like David Duke as President." - "Coming from a black man, that's pretty naïve."