Elevator Pitch
Ron Stallworth is the first black police officer to join the force in Colorado Springs. After a time in the Archives he convinces his boss to allow him to become a detective, and he almost randomly chooses to infiltrate the KKK in the city, by telephone. When asked to attend a meeting he has to recruit a white detective to take his part; the subterfuge is successful leading to the detectives learning about a plot to plant a bomb at a meeting of black students organised by Ron’s girlfriend.
Content
Ron does a lot of telephoning, there are political speeches by both black and white orators, the white detective attends KKK meetings and shows himself to be an excellent shot, the Klan meetings become more threatening particularly when attended by the Grand Wizard, Ron gets together a bit with the attractive black student organiser, an old man describes a 1915 lynching of a young black man. The distressing events in Charlottesville feature at the end, with a speech by David Duke (KKK Grand Wizard), and one by President Trump. There is one explosion, some shooting but not at people, and no sex or nudity.
| A View | The 4 pm showing at our local cinema was full of people who laughed a lot at the jokey parts of the dialogue. The film seemed to rather unsubtly align KKK speeches and ideals with those of President Trump, particularly “America First”, and I had no idea of the significance of “Birth of a Nation” and “Gone with the Wind” in black/white American antipathy. So in conclusion we, in Europe, can only get bits of the message in this outing, but it’s still worth seeing. | ||
| Duration | 2h 15m | Rating (UK) | 15 |
| Source of story | A book Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth | ||
| Director | Spike Lee | ||
| Writers/Script | Charlie, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, Spike Lee | ||
| Starring | Alec Baldwin, John David Washington, Robert John Burke, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier | ||
| Additional Info | The narrative drifts away from that in the book in the latter part of the film, and in fact the identity of the white detective has never been revealed. | ||
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