BlacKkKlansman (Spike Lee, 2018)
My first Spike Lee joint (yes yes I know I should watch Do the Right Thing at the very least), though I had some idea of what to expect. Specifically, I knew not to expect subtlety, be it in content or in style. BlacKkKlansman conformed to these expectations in most ways, including a scene that might as well have "DONALD TRUMP" written across the screen (and I'm not talking about a scene in which we actually hear or see him, those are at least not pretending to be about characters speaking to each other rather than directly winking at the audience while exaggeratingly mouthing off "DO YOU GET IT ?"), certainly the lowest point of the film for me... and I'll get to the ending, but for the most part I was pleasantly surprised by the nuance that was present in certain places. The montage towards the end of the film (White Power/Black Power) is an example of this: while it is very clear which side is entirely despicable and which one is morally justified, they are nonetheless put side by side and I don't think Lee simply intends us to see it as simplistically as, well, D.W. Griffith did in The Birth of a Nation.
The whole film centers on John David Washington as this black cop at a time where being a black cop meant a permanent identity crisis (though I suppose this is still true today, as with many things this film adresses), and by the end I'm not sure if we're supposed to see his attempts at changing the system from the inside as foolish or admirable. Both, probably, and I'm not sure we're meant to see Patrice (played by Laura Harrier in what is the only mediocre performance in a film filled with great ones) as being entirely right or wrong either. This, I didn't expect from a Spike Lee joint, and I don't know if this is because his reputation is exagerrated or if this film represents something new for him, but either way I like it a lot.
Let's get back to those performances, starting with Washington in the main role. He's a revelation (to me anyway) in a very tricky role that requires charisma, comedic timing and still carry the internal struggle that the film doesn't spend that much time on after the first 20 minutes, but stays there in his performance. The film is very tricky tonally, and it's a credit to him, Lee's direction and Blanchard's score that it doesn't feel like a mess at all. Driver also does very well here, with a role that is slightly underwritten but never feels like it thanks to him. And finally there's Topher Grace: he's in a cartoon but, well, he's playing a real-life cartoon character so that's fine with me, and he manages to be entirely ridiculous and unnerving at the same time, though he's undoubtedly helped by his character's name recognition. I'll also mention that I kept squinting in this film, wondering if the third cop was Steve Buscemi with a lot of makeup or what the hell was going on there... turns out it's Michael Buscemi, his brother. Well, that makes sense.
Most importantly though, it's a film that deals with these heavy subjects in interesting ways while still being a very fun time, which is quite something to say for a film that's basically 60% racist rhetoric. In a way, that could feel wrong, and maybe this is why Lee chose to end it the way he did, which is undoubtedly powerful. I don't love that ending, partly because I think the film had made that point rather clearly already (even forgetting the scene I mentioned earlier, people screaming "America First" and David Duke being a character means it'd be hard to miss the point) and partly because it's incredibly exploitative (I can only assume the family authorized it but still), but it does keep in line with the content of the film and the score is excellent - as it is throughout - so it ends up working for me. It's an imperfect ending to an imperfect film, but an effective one.
8/10