Grappling with the past is something that's very much on the mind of BlacKkKlansman, whether it's in its primary plot that takes place in the 1970's or in moments like an opening scene that takes a swipe at how Gone With The Wind glorified the racist horrors of the Confederacy. The aforementioned primary plot concerns Ron Stallworth (John David Washington), who is making history in his Colorado Springs police department as their first black detective. Stallworth is primarily doing undercover work for this department and one of his first big assignments concerns his attempt to infiltrate a local KKK charter. Stallworth will communicate with the charters leaders over the phone while his partner, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), will play this version of Stallworth in-person as they try to figure out a way to take down these racist monsters.
Also taking up residence in Colorado Springs at this time is the black student union at the Colorado College, which is led by Stallworth's girlfriend Patrice Dumas (Laura Harrier). BlacKkKlansman's prominent theme of the proper and improper ways of grappling with the past is most clearly seen in a sequence that cuts between a KKK meeting overseen by David Duke (Topher Grace) and numerous black residents of Colorado Springs listening to an impassioned speech by Jerome Turner (Harry Belafonte). While we see the KKK members whoop and holler in delight at repugnant racist imagery in a D.W. Griffith movie, Turner mournfully recalls a horrifying event wherein a black man accused of raping a white woman was gruesomely torn to pieces (literally) by white townsfolk. Those attending this KKK meeting are rejoicing for the very same racist atrocities that haunt Jerome Turner and all of those he tells this story to.
It's a powerfully haunting sequence that's made as effective as it is by well-timed pieces of editing that know just when to cut between the two meetings and real-life civil rights activist Harry Belafonte's performance. There's a whole bunch of impactfully evocative dramatic sequences like this scattered throughout BlacKkKlansman and they're paired up with a number of humorous elements that stem from the ludicrous nature of Stallworth's undercover mission, with a white police officers reaction to first hearing about Stallworth planning to infiltrate the KKK being especially hilarious. Bold tonal switches can be a daunting thing to pull off, but it can be done as filmmakers like Bong Joon-ho and Federico Fellini have shown over the years and it's no surprise that Spike Lee (who directs this film and penned the script with three other individuals) manages to nail this complex tone given how well he combined humorous everyday circumstances with grim reality in Do The Right Thing three decades prior.
The way light-hearted levity and bleak elements tend to co-exist and overlap in the tone of BlacKkKlansman allows for the story to be at once an extremely entertaining feature about two detectives trying to keep a secret identity going while doing undercover work and a thoughtful exploration of how racism of the past influences racism in the modern-day world. Both the comedic possibilities inherent in this absurd premise and the hefty themes backed into the basic concept of BlacKkKlansman are served so well by this unique and excellently realized tone and the same goes for the cast, which is led by John David Washington, son of Denzel Washington, as protagonist Ron Stallworth.
It isn't long into his on-screen performance that John David Washington easily becomes his own distinct & talented actor instead of just being the son of a legendary performer. Washington's got a charisma to him that just makes him so incredibly engaging and his sense of comedic timing makes his various phone calls with members of the KKK absolutely hysterical to watch. Washington also has fun in his numerous interactions with Adam Driver, who continues his phenomenal hot streak of performances with a wonderfully realized turn that beautifully captures his characters complex conflicted nature. Laura Harrier is so compelling in her turn as activist Patrica Dumas that I want her to get her own spin-off film and Topher Grace lends equal measures of humor and menace to his turn as David Duke which has Duke throwing out the most hideous racist statements with an "Aw shucks!' casualness that Grace nails in delivering.
These assorted top-notch performances emerge under the excellent direction of Spike Lee who conveys a sense of perceptiveness and urgency in his work behind the camera. There's a level of passion for the humanity of the downtrodden coming through in details like how he films attendees of an impassioned speech given by Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins, who just knocks his one scene out of the ballpark with an incredibly convincing and engrossing portrayal of a public speaker). Like the aforementioned sequence cutting between a KKK meeting and a group gathered to hear Jerome Turner's tale of racist horrors, editor Barry Alexander Brown accentuates the strong visual choices of Spike Lee by knowing just when is the proper time to cut between shots, with this specific scene demonstrating how Brown cuts between audiences members in a way that matches the gradually escalating sense of passion in Kwame Ture's speech.
Spike Lee's masterfully unique visual sense and this carefully executed editing combine with Corey Hawkins excellent performance to get the viewer as wrapped up in this speech as the attendees of the speech in the movie are. BlacKkKlansman has a real gift for how well it's able to transmit in-movie
emotions of passionate anger against the unjust into viewers themselves both in this specific scene and throughout the whole motion picture. There really is so much to admire in this movie, from its performances to its editing to its writing to its costumes (the 70's era garbs are so well-realized), it's all just so excellent. BlacKkKlansman uses the racial horrors of the past to comment on the racial horrors of the present and it does in a phenomenally skillful way.
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