BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Every year I make a point of watching each of the Best Picture nominees for the Academy Awards before the ceremony airs. And every year I'm astonished at some of the films that are considered to be the "best" of the previous year. 'BlacKkKlansman' is a prime example of this. Is it a bad film? No. Is it a good film? Sure. But is it a great film and one of the eight best released in 2018? Not in this lifetime. Sadly I understand a lot of politics come into the Oscars and I think that is a large part of what is at play here. This is a heavily politically driven film that tugs at the heart-strings of just the right type of people that dominate Hollywood and the Academy. For that reason it gets a nomination. Not because it is a great film.

Adam Driver has been nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards as well. This was also a baffling one to me. His performance is good and highly watchable, but he never blew me away by any stretch of the imagination. I kept waiting for him to be given one big scene he could really shine through and knock the audiences socks off with, but it never came. A really bizarre nomination from the Academy I would find it extremely surprising if he got the win for this reason.

The film was actually very similar to the 2016 film 'Imperium' starring Daniel Radcliffe. Obviously it didn't have the twist of a black man being behind the infiltration, but a lot of the actual person to person undercover scenes were very similar in nature. I think I enjoyed that film more though because it was more interested in telling you a story, instead of ramming a view down your throat. I also thought the real-life footage shown at the end of 'BlacKkKlansman' was cheap and out of place. A very tacky decision by Spike Lee to throw that in there. I miss the days from the 90s when if a film was nominated for Best Picture you could be assured it was a truly brilliant film. This film doesn't even compare to those.

Fmovies: I'd love to thank the Adelaide Film Festival Film Club for the free advance screening for this review.

Blackkklansman comes to us from Director Spike Lee & Producer Jordan Peele and tells the true story of Ron Stallworth, the first african-american police officer in Colorado Springs infiltrating the Klu Klux Klan.

To achieve this he enlists the help of a fellow officer played by Adam Driver to pose as him in person while Ron handled the phone calls and planning.

This film is biographical in nature but has some fantastic storytelling, looking at the trailers, it looked like a really fun time with some funny humour about the time period and racism. I'm glad to report this isn't just some comedy movie, here we have a rare film that manages to be funny and outlandish at times but at the same time drives home a serious emotional message, Spike Lee should absolutely be commended for this because it was executed flawlessly.

John David Washington gives an interesting quirky performance here and nails it perfectly, Adam Driver turned out to be much more involved in the story than I had anticipated and has some really great moments.

I have never had a cinema experience quite like this, for instance at the tail end of the film, in the space of 10 minutes the entire audience in my screening went from laughing and some perfectly executed comedic dialogue to utter still silence in absolute awe, frozen & horrified by what was appearing on screen, this silence went on for a few moment even after the fade to black and an applause started up.

This film had me thinking about what I had seen for a long, long time afterward and I am still thinking about it almost every second.

Blackkklansman really shows the Klan for what they really are, and highlights the good work of an amazing african-american police officer. The supporting cast does a great job here, Topher Grace as David Duke was an insanely good performance and I can imagine how hard it would be to embody that particular character and Laura Harrier plays off of Washington beautifully.

In addition there is a great cameo at the beginning of this film, be on the look out!

Blackkklansman is easily in my top 10 for 2018 so far and I urge you all to go see it in cinemas, small warning though, there are some quite confronting images in this film, they are hard to watch but I think that it should be watched as that is the intention here. Blackkklansman is out in cinemas August 17th.

Amazing true story of a small team of police infiltrating a local klan chapter to try to stop looming violence.

Driver is first class as the white undercover presence, with Washington himself oozing presence throughout as the black officer who conceives the plan, runs the show and in a number of hilarious high points gains the respect and trust of the big Klan chief over the phone.

Whilst there is arguably room for a little bit of trimming, this remains highly engaging throughout with a great script and fine performances. The amazing trick here is how Lee seems to very cleverly shift from laugh out loud comedy to troubling sometimes fairly intense scene and back without missing a beat.

BlacKkKlansman fmovies. I will echo what others have thought about this movie....totally disappointed. After reading glowing reviews and now the movie is up for major awards, I can't help wonder -- WHY? What did those critics see and hear and feel that I didn't. This movie was a snooze and made no sense in its chronological eventing of how Stallworth went from a PD records clerk to an undercover cop. I didn't smile or laugh and feel this is a total fail for Spike Lee. I see the movie made money, glad for that, but honestly, it's a dullard.

We are living in extremely polarizing times when it comes to race relations. This film is based on a true story about a white man and black man working together to tackle a hate group, and that would have sent such a powerful message. Instead, the white guy's race was changed. And as a fan of the original book, I'm just left scratching my head. And it helps to nullify the dynamic between a white and black person working together; in other words it explains why the first two thirds of the film seems a little boring and almost like filler.

Spike Lee has created an almost unimaginably uneven career in films, but it has never been in doubt, that he is one of the most talented American filmmakers of his generation. And should you have forgotten that, now you can remind yourself by watching the amazing "BlacKkKlansman", which won the Grand Prix at Cannes in May.

"BlacKkKlansman" tells the true story of a rookie African American police officer who in the 70's infiltrated in the KKK, but that's certainly not what the movie is about. Lee tackles head-on the contemporary hot topics of racism, the police killing black Americans, and white supremacy to create an overwhelming pamphlet about the American identity - which has been hurled into a state of great confusion after the last presidential election.

Movies don't come much more political as this one. In a way, "BlacKkKlansman" is a companion piece to "The Post" - a movie that similarly discussed the current political climate in a 70's setting - but with loads more of blackness, humour, anger and attitude. It's a better movie, too.

Though not perfect. Form-wise, "BlacKkKlansman" is sometimes paced oddly and feels needlessly long: not overlong, exactly, because you're not going to be bored for a minute. Visually it could have used a little more of the delicious textures typical of those 70's blacksploitations it makes references to.

But Lee is such a virile storyteller, that you can't help but get sucked in it all. And he has SO much to say. "BlacKkKlansman" is at its savage best when putting in perspective the official holier-than-thou image of the white Americans: Harry Belafonte cameos as an eye-witness of the beastly lynching of Jesse Washington in 1916.

Actors in "BlacKkKlansman" are great. John David Washington excels in the lead role. Adam Driver signs what is arguably his best role to date. Ryan Eggold is terrific as the local boss of the KKK, and the Finnish Jasper Pääkkönen impresses as his right hand man. The biggest surprise of all is Topher Grace, who is near-ingenious as David Duke, a well-mannered bag of sleaze in a three-piece.

"BlacKkKlansman" is an incredibly rich and stirring piece of contemporary cinema with enough stuff to fuel a conversation for hours. Or days. You can get a lot less with a price of a movie ticket these days.