Spike Lee. He is not solely an interesting director, he is an interesting human being but on camera. You never know what to expect based on an interview or when a movie of his will bring an outside-of-the-box idea onto the screen whether relevant, entertaining or not. Bottom line, I have not been a fan of his movies. I think he has a couple of great movies with Do The Right Thing and 25th Hour and very good movies like Malcolm X and Inside Man in his filmography. But, I felt like with most of his movie, he has most of his personal opinions spoken by his characters interfere with the atmosphere or within the story. Even though I admire his ambitions, it seems to distance myself from the experience by being attentive to what he is saying than rather presenting the story with the issues and it becomes an unsatisfying film in the end from most of his movies. So, it has been a while since I've seen a very good or great Spike Lee film, but the same ammunition and passion that was bestowed upon him to make a great film like Do The Right Thing, I can happily say that I witnessed it after finishing Lee's latest film.
The movie takes place in 1979 in Colorado Springs as Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, who is Denzel Washington's son) become the first black officer on the police force after being interviewed by Chief Bridges (Robert John Burke) and Mr. Turrentine (Isaiah Whitlock, Jr.). Due to the setting, it is a tough political and social climate surrounding African-Americans. After being harassed by an officer, Ron requests that he been put on assignment in the field and initially the chief declines, but he assigns him to go to a Black Panther meeting, as the Chief puts Detectives Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) and Jimmy Creek (Michael Buscemi) to sit in as Ron goes in with a wire.
Ron attends the meeting and meets head of the Black Student Union, Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier), and tries to convince her that he is down for the cause. He becomes invested in spokesperson's/activist's Stokely Carmichael's (Corey Hawkins) words when he says that everyone in the black community should learn to love their black culture and not be afraid to conform the white folk as he thinks that there may be some impending race war between black people and white officers.
Later on, Ron finds an ad for the Ku Klux Klan and he is compelled to call them. Ron poses as a white man to speak to the Klan president named Walter Breachway (Ryan Eggold) and manages to convince Walter that he is a white Aryan man. They arrange a meeting but Ron realizes that he screwed up by using his real name. Ron brings the information to Chief Bridges and wants to arrange a white person to play Ron so they decide to use Flip as they use a script to differentiate between speaking "White English" and "jive". Flip is given a wire to use for his face-to-face meetings with the Klan. Flip gains trust from most of the Klansmen but he is worried that they would find out about his background, meaning that he is Jewish. Meanwhile, Ron is assigned to protect The Klan's Grand Wizard, David Duke (Topher Grace), despite knowing what would happen to him.
I was surprised how much I liked this movie as it is brutally honest, political, relevant, entertaining and also darkly funny as there are little moments like details regarding information that will keep people off-track or have people thinking as to they were being told different information. There is suspense involving the characters, in quiet, humorous or suspenseful terms that might cost them or other people their lives. I like how Spike Lee ties in the current political climate regarding race wars and mixing it in with the material here. It is shocking to know and witness on-screen the material regarding discussions between the anti-cop groups and anti-black groups as to how their beliefs work in the system. It is an imperfect system but it is triggered by people who are not warranting a perfect system for all races in America.
But, I was worried going into this movie about Lee hammering you with the social divide and politics and it provides enough commentary and talk about those times back then but again it is shocking to think about how relevant society is today in parallel to what was going on in the '70s. Obviously, Lee is aiming at Donald Trump with what was going on back then surrounding the Ku Klux Klan and their beliefs. He is saying that even though the Klan is not discussed as a talked-about group today there are white nationalists today dividing the nation and not making America, "the land of the free and home of the brave." The shocking image at the end of the movie makes a good point for what Lee has presented to us with his movie.
The cast is great all around. John David Washington makes a name for himself as he does not try to imitate his father's actions but have that same swagger like his dad by balancing the serious gravitas with the humor. But, the best performance in my opinion goes to Adam Driver, which I think he should get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, as he plays a Jewish character that is confronted by white people who are denigrating the diverse groups by being superior. He is white, yes, but his ancestors were confronted because of solely being Jewish. They were also being mistreated and I like that Lee reached another level of that that it is not solely about the blacks but other minorities as well like Driver's character. Topher Grace as the controversial David Duke and Laura Harrier gives a nice supporting performance as an activist opposed to cops.
Bottom line, this is one of Spike Lee's very best movies as he takes you on a rollercoaster of emotions of suspense, irony and humor to punching you in the gut with the path and evidence that Lee is showing us in the end of the movie which is powerful. It is also produced by Jordan Peele and also Jason Blum and they know what they have gotten into since they made the great Get Out last year. Also, the score by Terence Blanchard is perfect supporting the difficult darkly comedic yet horrifying tone. The screenplay meshes Lee's personal/political opinions with the dialogue quite well and makes sense. Is it a return to form for Lee? I think so. This has a shot to make my list of the best films of 2018.
****
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