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| Image courtesy of Focus Features. |
Probably no other filmmaker on earth could have taken this material and turned it into a comedy, but that's exactly what Lee does. Many forget that before it takes a deadly serious turn in its finale, his remarkable treatise on race relations, "Do the Right Thing," starts out as a comedy, of sorts, as well. But here, the laughs stick in the throat. For every belly laugh at the expense of the stupidity of the Klan members - or a hilarious moment involving a response that Stallworth gets when he appears surprised that one of his fellow officers might call him a racial slur - there's a truly uncomfortable one to follow.
The film - which we are told at the beginning is based on some "fo real, fo real shit" - first introduces us to Stallworth as he attempts to become the Colorado Springs police department's first black officer. He's met with some cold shoulders, but eventually earns the respect of the men with whom he is working - namely, Zimmerman, another cop named Jimmy (Michael Buscemi) and his superior officer (Ken Garito).
Stallworth is mildly annoyed when his first assignment is to attend a speech given by Kwame Ture, nee Stokely Carmichael (in an excellent cameo by Corey Hawkins, of "Straight Outta Compton"), whom the police chief believes has arrived in town to incite the black population. Once there, Stallworth meets Patrice (Laura Harrier), the head of the local school's black student union. Stallworth is taken with her, despite his insistence that she need not make everything about politics.
Upon browsing through the newspaper, Stallworth spots a recruitment ad for the local chapter of the KKK and, much like the hero of "Sorry to Bother You," puts on a white voice and places a call. The man on the other end is taken with his passionate put-on hatred of black people, and invites him to attend an upcoming meeting. Stallworth sells his fellow officers on spying on the Klan, and convinces Zimmerman - who admits to never having given much thought to his Jewishness, but rather as "just another white kid" - to pose as Stallworth and meet the fellow chapter members.
Zimmerman spends time with the Klan members - soft spoken leader Walter (Ryan Eggold), dipshit drunk Ivanhoe (Paul Walter Hauser) and frightening Felix (Jasper Paakkonen), who is suspicious of the new recruit - at a dive bar, where Ivanhoe drunkenly blurts out something about a future attack, which intrigues the undercover cops. As Zimmerman gets deeper and deeper into the Klan chapter's business, he and Stallworth learn of a plan to set off an explosive at an event where Patrice's student union will host a guest speaker.
During one of the film's most powerful moments, a scene unfolds during which David Duke (a terrific Topher Grace) visits the Colorado Klan chapter and the group watches D.W. Griffith's landmark - and virulently racist film "The Birth of a Nation" as Patrice and a large group of black attendees listen as a character played by the great Harry Belafonte discusses how he watched a young, mentally challenged youth tortured and brutally murdered before a mob of angry white people after he was falsely accused of attacking a white woman.
The scene flips back and forth between the Klan members as they hurl racist invective at the Griffith film - which depicts white actors in blackface attacking white women - and Belafonte telling his harrowing story. The scene ends with the Klansmen shouting "white power" and Belafonte's character raising his fist and nearly whispering "black power."
But the film's most powerful juxtaposition is in its finale after Stallworth's case has been wrapped up - or something to that effect. After receiving a knock on his door, Stallworth and Patrice enter the hallway of his building, and Lee gives us one of his best "people-mover shots" - the director's trademark stylistic touch, you'll know what I mean when you see it - and the sounds of screaming voices begin to rise.
The film then cuts to actual footage of racist marchers in Charlottesville in 2017 shouting "blood and soil" and "Jews won't replace us," a clip of President Donald Trump defending attendees at that white power march, footage of white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr.'s car plowing into the protesters of the march and then raw, emotional footage of those who witnessed the scene. For much of the film's running time, Lee takes the bold step of utilizing his material for comedic purposes, but there was a noticeable hush in the film's final moments. "Oh my God," said a man sitting behind me after witnessing the film's finale as a Prince song kicked in and a photo of Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer's face appeared with a message below it reading "Rest in Power."
Oh my God, indeed. Despite some excellent documentaries - his Katrina chronicle, "When the Levees Broke" - and the imperfect - but truly fascinating - "Chi-Raq," a number of Lee's films of recent years have been interesting experiments that don't quite add up. "BlacKkKlansman" is his most potent and flat out best feature film in years. It ranks among his best - "Do the Right Thing," "Malcolm X," "25th Hour" and "Clockers" - and is one of the most exhilarating pictures I've seen this year. It's also an extremely entertaining burst of truth to power.
"Wake up," one character tells Stallworth during the course of his investigation after he suggests that bigots could never amass enough power to inhabit the White House. Lee's terrific film is one hell of an alarm clock.
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