Blackkklansman

9.30pm, Monday, TG4

“With the right white man, we can do anything”

Spike Lee’s true-life crime drama proved a smash-hit at Cannes and also delivered the director’s thirdbiggest ever opening at the US box-o ce. Co-starring John David Washington (son of Denzel) and Adam Driver, Blackkklansman is one of those tales for which the phrase ‘truth is stranger than ction’ could have been invented.

In the early 1970s, a black undercover cop decided to in ltrate his local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. All contacts (naturally) were made via telephone, but when face-toface meetings were required, a white, Jewish o cer took up the baton. Remarkably, this double act quickly rose through the ranks of the secretive organisation, eventually entering the orbit of the Grand Wizard himself, David Duke. It would be di cult for Spike

Lee (or indeed any director) to maintain the balance between comedy and drama in the teeth of such a serious subject, but Blackkklansman succeeds on many fronts. What could have simply been an indictment of 1970s society becomes something more as Lee rmly tilts his lance at the Trump administration. He pointedly includes the former president’s controversial remarks in the wake of the Charlottesville riots, incorporates footage of that event into the lm’s end credits, and indeed the director released his lm on the rst anniversary of that deadly confrontation. On the acting front, both leads acquit themselves well, notably Washington, for whom it can’t be easy trying to emerge from his father’s shadow. There are strong supporting turns from Corey Hawkins, as a rebrand student activist, and Alec Baldwin as a White-power extremist. Nominated for six Oscars, Blackkklansman took the gong for Best Adapted Screenplay.

★★★★