This is a great and interesting story, I mean it's like that Chappelle Show sketch! A black Klansman! Well I'll be! And it's a true story of how Detective Ron Stallworth infiltrated the KKK over the phone and even had long discussions with infamous Grand Wizard David Duke. Unfortunately it isn't a great movie, but it does have it's moments. I haven't done the full dive to compare the actual real life events and the stuff made up by Hollywood to make it into a movie but right off the bat it is apparent that the romantic subplot between Ron and student activist Patrice is completely fabricated. It never feels real and even starts but him just walking up to her with no game and just being instantly liked. I understand that this character is here to represent Ron's inner struggle as a black man trying to solve problems from the inside. Being the first black police man on the Colorado Springs force and seeing how the system is designed to keep people like him down but still having a belief that it can work, there is a lot to mine there. In my opinion it isn't handled that well and neither is this bomb subplot that is also completely fabricated. I suppose it works for a movie or what you think a movie should have in it to go through the motions. I also understand that the movie wants to make the Klansman look like fools, and it should, but the movie goes so far into making them toothless fools that you start to wonder if the Klan is really a threat at all. Besides these structural issues there really are some great moments and sequences, especially when they intercut Harry Belafonte telling the story of Jesse Washington being publicly lynched in 1916 with Klansman hooting and hollering while watching "The Birth Of A Nation". I'm not completely sure that the montage at the end of Charlottesville works for the movie but it is powerful stuff. It seems to be there as the movie kind of ends with Ron and the gang in a happy place and hopeful that things can be changed, but a stark reminder that there is still a ways to go.
Review by JimDarkoVIP 7BlockedParent2018-12-31T21:02:16Z
This is a great and interesting story, I mean it's like that Chappelle Show sketch! A black Klansman! Well I'll be! And it's a true story of how Detective Ron Stallworth infiltrated the KKK over the phone and even had long discussions with infamous Grand Wizard David Duke. Unfortunately it isn't a great movie, but it does have it's moments. I haven't done the full dive to compare the actual real life events and the stuff made up by Hollywood to make it into a movie but right off the bat it is apparent that the romantic subplot between Ron and student activist Patrice is completely fabricated. It never feels real and even starts but him just walking up to her with no game and just being instantly liked. I understand that this character is here to represent Ron's inner struggle as a black man trying to solve problems from the inside. Being the first black police man on the Colorado Springs force and seeing how the system is designed to keep people like him down but still having a belief that it can work, there is a lot to mine there. In my opinion it isn't handled that well and neither is this bomb subplot that is also completely fabricated. I suppose it works for a movie or what you think a movie should have in it to go through the motions. I also understand that the movie wants to make the Klansman look like fools, and it should, but the movie goes so far into making them toothless fools that you start to wonder if the Klan is really a threat at all. Besides these structural issues there really are some great moments and sequences, especially when they intercut Harry Belafonte telling the story of Jesse Washington being publicly lynched in 1916 with Klansman hooting and hollering while watching "The Birth Of A Nation". I'm not completely sure that the montage at the end of Charlottesville works for the movie but it is powerful stuff. It seems to be there as the movie kind of ends with Ron and the gang in a happy place and hopeful that things can be changed, but a stark reminder that there is still a ways to go.