Rating 79/100

Another Adam Driver movie in the books. 

Welcome to the Adam Driver fan club where I will talk about all things Driver… I’m kidding, sort of. Besides actually wanting to see this movie, it got shoved to the top of the list because of Driver. However, I did refrain from only picking photos that he was featured in. I thought I’d save all of your eyes from his awesomeness. 

This won’t be an easy review for me to write. Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with Mr. Driver’s skill. I won’t be talking poorly about him. I mean the way he swiveled in his chair in that one scene…. or when he was leaning against the pickup truck… those gun holsters…

*shakes head*

Sorry about that. I’m back and I will try and keep those side tangents down to a minimum, but I make no promises. 

This review is difficult because, though I really liked the message, the story, and everything the movie represented, there were a lot of things that made this movie fall short in technical terms. 

I want to make myself clear. I enjoyed the BlacKkKlansman from a political standpoint - probably the only reason that it received such a high score. Fine… you caught me. And because of Adam Driver’s awesomeness. BlacKkKlansman is a history lesson in hate. Do viewers fully understand the pure hatred of some white people? Do they know how hard it was for black people to stand up? I appreciate that the KKK was shown so that viewers could see what has existed, and in many ways still exists. Thank goodness there was a layer of comedy over the whole movie so that the truth wasn’t as hard to swallow. 

Still, in all the ways that they tried, there were a few big movie rules that were broken. Things that had me rolling my eyes. Look at the second to last scene, the one in the hallway, before all the real life protest footage was shown (I’ll get to the protest footage in a second). How much cringe was the production team trying to achieve? They achieved the status of losing the audience, taking the focus away from the powerful moment of the last scene, which was very well done. The reflection in the eyes - a nod to the blind rage and tunnel vision by members of the KKK - was the most hard hitting message in the movie for me. And it was almost lost due to the directing choices right beforehand. 

Besides the ending, the team also decided to add in the protest footage. The protest footage is powerful on it’s own, but how does it relate to the movie? Are they trying to say that the KKK were involved? I get that there is nothing resolved in the world when it comes to a black person’s safety and rights, but Stallworth’s life has some resolution. The writers threw out this huge question about Stallworth right at the end and they didn’t answer it. Are they trying to make a second movie? And on top of all of that, there were the expostional moments. Even a documentary doesn’t show an entire speech/protest like the BlacKkKlansman did. Where was the conflict? The parallel between the two speeches in the second half was nice, but did we need to see their full length instead of just the hard hitting points? 

My conclusion is that they were going for the docu-drama feel without giving an audience a warning. What was sold versus what was on the screen set them up for failure. It’s The Village all over again. Upon further research, comedy is never mentioned in the list of descriptions for this movie, but it was the feeling they sold viewers. Look at the advertising, the poster… the marketing team should have done their job better. 

If you need another reason to watch the BlacKkKlansman (Adam Driver should be enough), I hope that the very idea of what this movie talks about should be enough. It’s another great film to add to the list of black power movies. It’s another spark to the growing flame. I’m proud this movie made it to the big screen and received the attention that it did, especially after researching the real life Stallworth. It turns out that a lot of what was shown is accurate, even down to the Polaroid. I wonder if the real Grand Duke has watched the movie? 

Happy Watching

Love Kait