See What all the Buzz is About in the First Trailer for Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman

Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman made waves at the Cannes Film Festival, where it has a good shot at taking home the Palme d’Or. Critics are hailing the film as both a hilarious and bracing, stylish and unnerving. In short, a Spike Lee joint, from an auteur who seems to be back at the top of his game. The first trailer will give you a peek at what all the buzz is about.

Lee’s film is based on Ron Stallworth’s book, which told his story of a being the first African-American police officer in Colorado Springs who, as a rookie, concocted a plan to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan. The film stars Ballers star John David Washington (Denzel’s son) as Stallworth, whose skin color makes it impossible for him to go undercover himself. When asked by his superior officers how they can possibly pull this off, Stallworth says, “with the right white man, we can do anything.” That white man is fellow officer Flip Zimmerman (The Last Jedi’s Adam Driver), a Jewish cop who’s going to go undercover as the white version of Stallworth. (The phone call Stallworth places to Klan leader David Duke—played by Topher Grace—is worth the price of admission alone). The cast includes Robert John Burke as Chief Bridges, the great Harry Belaftone, and Laura Harrier as Patrice, a black activist.

The film was a hit at Cannes, where critics are praising Lee’s most flat-out entertaining film in years. Vulture‘s Emily Yoshida writes: “Lee never takes his eye off the connecting thread between the events of 1978 and the present. The result is one of his most flat-out entertaining films in years, and also one of his most uncompromising.” Many critics have noted how Lee’s seemingly done the impossible; he’s made a stylish, funny, bracing film that is also a coherent indictment of the treatment of African-Americans at the hands of not only the obvious villains like David Duke, but the more liberal minded among us. Vanity Fair‘s Richard Lawson puts it this way: “BlacKkKlansman‘s joke is an indictment of complacency, particularly that of white liberals who’d rather not confront the distressing fact that not much has changed in 40 years, beyond a re-styling of old, old ideology.”

Check out the first trailer below. BlacKkKlansman hits theaters on August 10.

Featured image: Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) and Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) go undercover in Spike Lee’s ‘BlacKkKlansman.’ Courtesy Focus Features.