BLACKkKLANSMAN  4.0***

     For starters, this is a great movie that reminds us that nothing much has changed in the good old USA when it comes to race relations. Director Spike Lee and crew do a fabulous job bringing a story to life with an up-to-date ending that should affect any decent human being. The movie chronicles a stranger-than-fiction true tale of a black rookie police officer, Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, son of Denzel Washington), and his personal awakening to "white hate". His on-the-job experience leads him to involvement with two extremist groups, Black Power activists and the Knights of Ku Klux Klan. Going undercover with the black group is no problem for Ron, but he must enlist the aid of a white Jewish officer (Adam Driver), to impersonate him and infiltrate  the white supremist group. All this leads up to an amazing meeting with Grand Wizard David Dukes (Topher Grace) and exposing these hate-mongers and their terrorism. 

Spike Lee's films are always concerned with righting wrongs. Unafraid to call out racial prejudice and anti-Semitism, among others, his cinematic statements deal with current issues and our continued repeating of past mistakes. This is grandiose filmmaking, ambitious in its epic undertaking and layered with multiple storylines and stark imagery.  The tone of the film dramatically shifts  in its mood swings from heavy drama into  dark satire and humor to convey the irony and cruelty of the human condition.  

There are major set pieces that are quite impressive. Very notable is Lee’s crosscutting of contrasting scenes with the Klansmen and their families viewing D.H. Griffith’s  film: “A Birth of a Nation” ( considered very racist in its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan and its brutal images of blacks) in rapturous attention and chanting "white power" while in another part of the city, black college students listen in awe to a lecture about the senseless murder of an innocent black man as they shout "black power". The variance between the two groups is startling. Never one to shy away from making a political statement or two, Mr. Lee uses intense documentary imagery in the film including an ending holding our current President personally responsible for the polarized climate in our splintered nation.

John David Washington gives an interesting and quirky performance that nails his role perfectly, and Adam Driver, is excellent as the white undercover cop who handles the person to person meetings with the Klansmen with  some really great moments. The supporting cast does a great job especially Topher Grace as David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the KKK, who delivers an insanely fine performance.  

Rated R for language throughout, including racial epithets, and for disturbing/violent material