Review of BlacKkKlansman (2018) by Richard B — 23 Jan 2019

This film isn't just bad, it's atrocious in almost every element of filmmaking. What makes it even more insufferable is that the film appears on numerous "best films of 2018" lists by prominent national critics.

If I were a cynical guy, I might attribute that to a combination of misplaced white guilt and anxiety about maintaining one's liberal credentials. Don't misunderstand me--I'm all for confronting racism in the US, a racism that continues to this day and even has renewed political support from an unapologetic right-wing.

But Spike Lee, a highly regarded director, has produced a film so amateurish, superficial, didactic, moralistic and dull that it seems to be the work of a recent film school graduate with a simple-minded script, a forced agenda combined with a total lack of vision, and a drunken butcher for an editor.

The performance by lead John David Washington is decent enough but in the service of a role that is shallow and in a film that can't seem to decide between genres but does none of them well. The direction in particular is appalling--awkward scenes badly sequenced and shot, forced messaging, incoherent exposition, characters that seem to change orientation (like the police chief) without explanation, a lack of suspense or strong identification with the cartoonish characters, even oddly dim lighting and weak locations in many scenes as if to convey a dreary atmosphere in pseudo-symbolic visuals.

Most of the characters are one-dimensional, emotionally strained or just flat. Topher Grace plays David Duke with no hint of real evil or charisma--just a weak affect--so it's hard to hate him as we might like.

This is self-important propaganda that actually undermines its own righteous theme. A scene with Harry Belafonte describing the horrific murder of a young black man is shocking less for the brutality he recounts than for how awkward and unaffecting the entire scene is.

The movie seems to end, then backtrack and sabotage itself, then tack on a jarring coda of scenes from Charlottesville--as if we would otherwise fail to see that vile racism persists. I begin to think Spike Lee does best when he has a film that doesn't tempt him into self-indulgent preaching, say like "Inside Man".

Sermonizing in a film like this results in bad entertainment and insulting manipulation of the audience.