BlacKkKlansman Dvd

BlacKkKlansman is a 2018 American biographical crime drama film directed by Spike Lee and written by Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Lee, based on the 2014 memoir Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth. The film stars John David Washington as Stallworth, along with Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, and Topher Grace. Set in the 1970s in Colorado Springs, the plot follows the first African-American detective in the city’s police department as he sets out to infiltrate and expose the local Ku Klux Klan chapter.

The film was produced by Spike Lee, Raymond Mansfield, Shaun Redick, Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, and Jordan Peele. QC Entertainment purchased the film rights to the book in 2015. Lee signed on as director in September 2017. Much of the cast joined the following month, and filming began in New York State.

BlacKkKlansman premiered on May 14, 2018, at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. It was theatrically released in the United States on August 10, 2018, a day before the first anniversary of the Unite the Right rally. The film received acclaim from critics, who praised Lee’s direction, the performances (particularly of Washington and Driver) and timely themes, as well as noting it as a return to form for Lee. It received six nominations at the 91st Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Lee’s first directing nomination), and Best Supporting Actor for Driver, and won for Best Adapted Screenplay, making it Lee’s first competitive Academy Award. The American Film Institute also selected it as one of the top 10 films of 2018, and at the 76th Golden Globe Awards it earned four nominations, including Best Motion Picture – Drama.

Plot

In 1972, Ron Stallworth is hired as the first black officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Assigned to work in the records room, he gets bored and asks for a position of that of an undercover cop. He is assigned to infiltrate a local rally where national civil rights leader Kwame Ture (a.k.a. Stokely Carmichael) gives a speech. At the rally, Stallworth meets Patrice Dumas, president of the Black Student Union at Colorado College. While she takes Ture to his hotel, Patrice is stopped by patrolman Andy Landers, a racist officer in Stallworth’s precinct, who threatens Ture and gropes Patrice.

After the rally, Stallworth is reassigned to the intelligence division. After reading about a local division of the Ku Klux Klan in the newspaper, he calls posing as white and speaks with Walter Breachway, the president of the Colorado Springs, Colorado chapter, but soon realizes not only did he use his real name, but he also has to go and meet the Klan members. So Stallworth recruits his Jewish coworker, Flip Zimmerman, to act as him to meet the Klan members while he continues to pose as white on the phone. Under the identity of Stallworth, Zimmerman meets Walter, the slightly more reckless Felix Kendrickson (and later his wife Connie), and Ivanhoe, who cryptically refers to an upcoming attack.

Calling Klan headquarters in Louisiana to expedite his membership, Stallworth begins regular phone conversations with Grand Wizard David Duke. Kendrickson suspects Zimmerman of being Jewish and tries to make him take a polygraph test at gunpoint, but Stallworth breaks the Kendricksons’ kitchen window to distract them. Stallworth begins dating Patrice, but does not tell her that he is a police officer. After passing information to the Army CID about active duty members, he learns from an FBI agent that two members are personnel stationed at NORAD.

Duke visits Colorado Springs for Stallworth’s induction into the Klan. Over the real Stallworth’s protests, he is assigned to a protection detail for Duke. Once Zimmerman is initiated, masquerading as Stallworth, Connie leaves the ceremony to place a bomb at a local civil rights rally. The real Stallworth realizes her intentions and alerts local police officers. When Connie notices a heavy police presence at the rally, she puts Felix’s backup plan into action and plants the bomb at Patrice’s house, leaving it under her car when it will not fit into the mailbox. Stallworth tackles her as she tries to flee, but uniformed officers detain and beat him despite his protests that he is working undercover.

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Scenes from The Birth of a Nation (1915) are used in the film
The bombmaker, Walker, recognizes Zimmerman from a prior arrest, and informs Felix. He, Felix and Ivanhoe arrive and trigger the bomb while Ron is being detained. Not realizing where Connie hid it, they detonate it while next to Patrice’s car, with the force of the blast overturning their car, killing everyone in the vehicle. Zimmerman arrives and frees Stallworth, and Connie is arrested. While celebrating the closed case that night with Patrice, Landers arrives and harasses the two, remorselessly admitting to his assault on Patrice; Stallworth then reveals he is wearing a wire, before the police chief arrives and arrests Landers for police brutality.

Police Chief Bridges congratulates the team for their success, but orders them to end their investigation and destroy the records. Stallworth receives a call from Duke, and he implies to Duke that he is black before hanging up. While Patrice and Stallworth discuss their future, they are interrupted by a knock on the door. Through the window in the hallway, they see a flaming cross on a hillside surrounded by Klan members. In 2017, a still-respected Duke speaks at the Unite the Right rally as U.S. President Donald Trump refuses to outright condemn white supremacy.

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Footage from the Charlottesville car attack was used in the film’s ending sequence.

Cast

John David Washington as Detective Ron Stallworth
Adam Driver as Detective Philip “Flip” Zimmerman
Laura Harrier as Patrice Dumas
Topher Grace as David Duke
Jasper Pääkkönen as Felix Kendrickson
Ryan Eggold as Walter Breachway
Paul Walter Hauser as Ivanhoe
Ashlie Atkinson as Connie Kendrickson
Corey Hawkins as Kwame Ture
Michael Buscemi as Jimmy Creek
Ken Garito as Sergeant Trapp
Robert John Burke as Chief Bridges
Fred Weller as Patrolman Andy Landers
Nicholas Turturro as Walker
Harry Belafonte as Jerome Turner
Alec Baldwin as Dr. Kennebrew Beauregard
Isiah Whitlock Jr. as Mr. Turrentine
Damaris Lewis as Odetta