Before this review gets serious, can we take a moment to appreciate the presence of the Inside Man thematic overture? So appropriate given the plot device and that Spike Lee directed the awesome 2006 heist film starring Denzel and Clive Owen. Now back to your regularly scheduled reviewing.
[Editor’s note: this review contains some spoilers.]
Spike Lee’s latest, BlacKkKlansman is on brand. It’s political. It tackles issues of race, obviously, and it features a few of his most well-known trademark tricks (like moving actors on a dolly to pull them in an eerie fashion against the backdrop). It’s also incredibly marketable, not only through its trailers and ads, but through its name. BlacKkKlansman. That singular moniker says a whole lot about the film. Yet, it also says a whole lot of nothing, if you’ve not paid attention to the full marketing campaign. It’s expository and a hook via question all in one. Titularly, more so than any of Lee’s other work, it presents questions begging answers. How can a black man be in the KKK? He’s a cop. But still, what? It’s a built-in audience builder and it deserves to be such: BlacKkKlansman’s powerful filmmaking on two fronts. One, it’s strong storytelling with compelling and relevant subject matter. And two, it’s also a statement piece that doesn’t shy from its message in any way, shape or form. In fact, it does the opposite.
When its dramatic conclusion happens, as it does, with gusto, Lee hits you with the real message, one that takes a series of hints strewn throughout the film that decrease in subtlety from vague to implicit and lets you know that yes, it’s an important historical tale, but it’s also an incredibly timely commentary on the racial state of affairs in the United States. What is at first implied becomes implicit when the ‘movie’ ends, but the ‘film’ continues. It’s no coincidence that BlacKkKlansman was released on August 10, two days before the first anniversary of the events in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Source: Destructoid Review: BlacKkKlansman