Point off for Spike Lee affixing a non-fiction broadcast as a coda that shouts his film’s already explicit message at the audience. The racial politics of the 1970s are as woefully relevant in 2018 as ever. Received, processed, acknowledged, and concurred with. If Lee felt the need to spell it out with a coda, what was the point of the film? Only an ignoramus could miss its explicitly post-Trump parable – just take these excerpts of dialogue: ‘America would never elect somebody like David Duke as president’ // ‘For America to achieve its greatness again…’. And of course, chants of ‘America First’. As it happens, increasingly convoluted plotting and a ‘70s rock melange of a score were steadily distancing the subject matter’s vitality anyway. Ultimately superficial, Steve McQueen has done this better.
B
