BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Warning: semi-spoilers within this review.

For the most part, BlackkKlansman is a mainstream piece of based-on-a-true-story entertainment. Despite being an indictment of racism, it spends at least as much time pointing out the ineptitude of the Ku Klux Klan as it does dealing with racism.

There's a distinct lack of discomfort that while it may not hammer home the horrors of racism, paints a more nuanced, and potentially more realistic picture of the experience. It also makes the film more palatable to a mainstream audience who are less likely to see a film that's going to make them experience suffering blow-by-blow and more likely to want to watch a film about a black cop who pulls one over on the white supremacists.

So, a nice safe film - until it hammers home its message at one point with a speech by Harry Belafonte recollecting a lynching from 1916, and then again in the final few minutes when a straight line is drawn between the racist past of the USA straight to present-day events. And it's heartbreaking.

As well as being a decently crafted piece of cinema, it's a film that people should be talking about. It's probably more important from an American perspective, given that nation's unique history with racism, but the echoes of those attitudes are disturbingly present throughout the rest of the European-centred world, so its relevance is definitely not limited to those shores.