On the same day the film is premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, Focus Features released the first trailer for Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. Based on a true story, the joint follows an African-American police officer who goes undercover in the Ku Klux Klan. It’s like the scene in Blazing Saddles where Cleavon Little, masked in an all-white hood, brags about stampeding cattle… through the Vatican, but less kinky. Despite the subject matter, though, BlacKkKlansman looks super fun (check out Kylo Ren as a white nationalist and the way Denzel’s son, John David Washington, says “white”) and Lee’s most commercial movie in years. It helps to have Jordan Peele as a producer.
Here’s the official synopsis.
It’s the early 1970s, and Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is the first African-American detective to serve in the Colorado Springs Police Department. Determined to make a name for himself, Stallworth bravely sets out on a dangerous mission: infiltrate and expose the Ku Klux Klan. The young detective soon recruits a more seasoned colleague, Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver), into the undercover investigation of a lifetime. Together, they team up to take down the extremist hate group as the organization aims to sanitize its violent rhetoric to appeal to the mainstream.
BlacKkKlansman opens on August 10.
