2018 ( USA ) ( Biography, Crime, Drama )
DIRECTOR: Spike Lee
STARRING: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier
It’s the improbable but apparently true story of a young black police detective, Ron Stallworth (played brilliantly by John David Washington), who, in the late Seventies, infiltrated the Colorado Springs chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. An advert in the local paper seeks KKK recruits. Ron calls the number and winds up being invited to a meeting. Being black is clearly a problem here, so his colleague Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) is drafted in for face to face interviews.
It’s funny and well-acted and the use of music is excellent. But the racism is astonishing, while the parallels with the Trump era are underlined with all the (lack of) subtlety we expect from Lee’s hard-hitting film and his best work in decades.
(2hr 15min)