After receiving the honour of this year’s Grand Prix Winner from Cannes Lions 2018, BlacKkKlansman has been the talk of the town. These discussions, however, have not all been good for the film. The film is labelled as a fact-based race drama, which revolves around an undercover cop who infiltrated the Klu Klux Klan in the ’70s.
BlacKkKlansman stars John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, and Topher Grace, and is directed by Spike Lee. Among the producers is Jordan Peele who won numerous awards for his directorial debut film, Get Out, in 2017. Detective Ron Stallworth (Washington) works together with fellow cop, Flip Zimmerman (Driver), to take down the Colorado arm of the Klu Klux Klan. While the film may be based on real-world events, there have been a few critics weighing in on the truthfulness of the entire film. The film itself is based on Ron Stallworth’s book, BlacKkKlansman: A Memoir, which was published in 2014.
One of the biggest detractors of the film is Boots Riley, director for Sorry To Bother You, who published a three-page Twitter essay about his views on the Spike Lee film. He wrote: “[T]o the extent that people of color deal with actual physical attacks and terrorizing due to racism and racist doctrines — we deal with it mostly from the police on a day to day basis. And not just from White cops. From Black cops too. So for Spike to come out with a movie where a story points are fabricated in order make Black cop and his counterparts look like allies in the fight against racism is really disappointing, to put it very mildly.” Riley believes that some of the events and characters from the film were dramatised to portray Stallworth in a good light as somewhat of a hero in his fight against racism at the time, with Riley claiming this wasn’t really the case.
BlacKkKlansman has been on the North American circuit for over a week already, and is set to light up the South African screens from 7 September 2018. You can view the trailer for the film below.
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