Film Review: BlacKkKlansman

When he comes across an advert placed in the local paper by the KKK, Ron mischievously calls the number to recruit, using his own name. To his surprise, Stallworth is summoned by gullible local chapter leader Walter Breachway (Ryan Eggold) to meet.

Unable to attend the meeting himself for obvious reasons, Ron ropes in his reluctant Jewish colleague Flip (played with subtlety by Adam Driver) to go to the meeting instead.

Presenting a mixture between pure comedy and moments of sobering horror, Spike Lee has managed to strike the right balance between remaining informative while allowing himself a degree of aesthetic self-indulgence in his homage to 70s Blaxploitation cinema.

Offering up some real Klan members, including infamous leader David Duke (Topher Grace), as ridiculous figures, Lee does an impressive job in pointing out the stupidity of racism while refusing to downplay the importance of standing up to it.

Lee and his team of writers are also careful to include a strong Jewish narrative by portraying Flip Zimmerman as someone whose own ethnicity catches up with him when he is faced by pure hatred, despite spending most of his life refusing to be defined by his Jewishness.

Dedicating its closing minutes to footage from Charlottesville last year, BlacKkKlansman left me with a feeling of dread, anger and a huge sense of sadness to see history repeating itself once again.