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Friday, November 30, 2018

The Ending Almost Ruined 'BlacKkKlansman'

BlacKkKlansman is a biopic that tells the remarkable story of Ron Stallworth, the first African-American police officer and detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department, who somehow successfully managed to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s.  His unbelievable exploit was kept under wraps for a long, long time.  It was only in 2006 where he finally disclosed the specifics in an interview.  In 2014, he published a memoir titled Black Klansman, which served as the source material of this film.

The plot follows Stallworth (played by John David Washington, the son of Denzel Washington) as he deals with the struggles of being a black police officer in the 70s and the challenges of going undercover within the KKK.  Through just the telephone, he manages to convince key members of the Klan – even its Grad Wizard himself, David Duke (Topher Grace) – that Ron Stallworth (he made the mistake of giving his real name) is a negro-hating white man like them, and win their trust.  However, when he’s required to meet the Klansmen face to face, his partner Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) assumes his identity and goes on his stead.  However, the thing is, Zimmerman is actually a Jew, and thus, not only is it critical that he perfectly keeps the façade that he’s “Ron Stallworth”, but he also needs to make sure that he doesn’t give away the fact that he’s Jewish.
Prior to watching BlacKkKlansman, I had already read about Stallworth.  But there were many crazy details in this film that were new to me.  Either I had forgotten about them or they were – which is very much likely – creative liberties.  Regardless, as far as the cinematic narrative is concerned, it’s generally compelling.  And surprisingly hilarious.  It treats its themes with the seriousness they deserrve, but with the more ridiculous aspects of the story – especially the aspects relating to how the Klan managed to get fooled – it utterly stresses on the ridiculousness that comedy gold is created.

It’s also unsurprisingly political.  For most of the movie, despite Spike Lee’s obvious leanings to the Left, it avoids being obnoxious about its messages, but be actually sensible and agreeable at most parts.  The only thing that really didn’t seat well with me at that point is that the movie somewhat painted the Black Panthers as a loud but non-violent activist movement (it wasn’t), and that their calls for violence were nothing worse than rhetorical (they weren’t).
But then BlacKkKlansman ends by making a connection to last year’s notorious Charlottesville rally.  It shows clips of present-day David Duke as well as Donald Trump’s controversial speech after the events (which was something that definitely should have been worded more carefully, but nevertheless was unfairly taken out of context by many in the mainstream media to frame the idea that Trump sympathizes with white supremacists or is one himself).  It’s just a very small part of the whole movie, but ending it in such a manner diminished the quality of the movie quite a bit, for not only does it feel forced and disjointed from the rest of the movie, but it made itself depreciate into just another liberal effort to label Trump a racist.  In addition, it felt like a cop-out since it didn’t really give the central story a fitting resolution.

In the end, its ending notwithstanding, I still like BlacKkKlansman.  It’s a fairly thoughtful, absorbing, and well-crafted film.  And if there’s one thing that I can strongly agree with among all the things it had to say, it’s this: racism deserves to be scorned, yes, but it also deserves to be mocked.

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