Burden: Wasn't it D.W. Griffith who directed The Redneck?

Writer-director Andrew Heckler’s Burden opens in mid-rage before descending into even more tumultuous turf. A sledgehammer shatters the lobby window of the Echo, a vacant South Carolina movie theatre. If the perps are of that variety of aimless youth who get off on vandalizing abandoned property, why were they joined by dad Tom Griffin (Tom Wilkinson)? We don’t know until 10 minutes into the picture that these particular Griffins descend from that line of Lucifer known as the family of Klan. The building that once housed the Echo is being remodeled by Griffin and his Aryan proselytes into a KKK Museum, complete with a well-stocked gift boutique. After all, there are museums honoring Martin Luther King and Holocaust survivors, don’t hate-mongering crackers deserve similar veneration?

Violence and profanity notwithstanding, the film takes an earlier-generation approach to its topic. Were it the ‘50s, Mike Burden’s (Garrett Hedlund) story would have been serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, and its big screen adaptation released to theatres under the title, I Was Adopted by the KKK. A young Burden is practically dumped on the doorstep of the hooded luminary who raises him as his own. Returning home from active duty, the only legitimate work Burden is able to find was as a repo man at Rent-To-Own. Taken at face value, he’s a rugged, good-natured sort, the type to give a gal a sweatshirt when the cool night air blows or refuse the advances of a “client” offering sex in exchange for a stay of repossession. But it’s a different story if you are black and flashing a one-finger salute because you knew who it is driving the car behind you. In that case, Burden personally sees to it that those who fit that description get pummeled.

A tight, low-angle close-up introduces Reverend Kennedy (Forest Whitaker) in mid-rail against 150 years of racial injustice. The shot cuts to find he’s not behind the pulpit delivering a sermon, but rather in the break room of a big box store, trying to smooth things out between a rightfully disgruntled black customer and the employee who refuses to admit she gives preferential treatment to whites. Up steps Judy (Andrea Riseborough), the film’s backbone, to issue a sincere, situation-smoothing apology “on behalf of all the cashiers in the world.” It’s on his way home from the mediation that Kennedy first catches sight of the Echo marquee’s change of bill: “The Redneck KKK Museum.” And it’s outside the Redneck Shop that the Reverend will spend much of the movie in protest. Most films of this race-baiting variety — and there are many — have little room for women, save for the homemaking/breeding-stock variety typified by Tom’s bride Hazel (Tess Harper). But instead of opting to let the brutes fight their battles until one inevitably comes to their senses and crosses over to the side of reason, first timer Heckler chooses Judy as the cure for what ails a hate-filled heart. It turns out that before his mother abandoned her son, Burden was allowed black playmates. Judy learns of his sheeted-lifestyle from a mutual friend, Clarence (Usher Raymond), and with full knowledge of his backstory, Judy accepts the family’s invitation for dinner. Tom cracks an off-color (or in this case on-color) joke that causes Judy to flee the table. What kind of dinner convo did she reckon from this flock of Kleagles? Ditto her shock over his habitual use of the n-word. “What do you expect?” Mike shouts in his defense. “I’m with the Klan!”

His inevitable downfall is cushioned by a conversion to Christ, jump-started by an accidental encounter between Kennedy and a down-and-out Burden asking his former enemy for a handout. Much to the shock and disgust of the Kennedy family, the Reverend invites the devil to live under their roof. There’s not a bad performance to be found, most notably Riseborough’s. There’ll be no hiding behind the hoods for her. Burden is Klan and stupid to boot, but there’s something about Judy’s faith in the redemptive power that can reach even monsters that makes this chug. Plus, she’s the only one capable of bringing a lighter moment to these dire proceedings. It’s one thing for Judy to sign off on a fishing trip with her son and a Klansman, another for Burden to allow one of his black friends to join them. (Call it a moment of Clarence clarity.) Upon the trio’s safe return home, Judy jokes that after spending the day with a black child, Burden should wash his hands before cooking.

Announced in 2015, completed in 2016, and previewed at Sundance in 2018, this is the first the film is seeing the projector light of day. A fact-based race drama with religious overtones makes for a lousy situation in Hollywood terms. But there’s no such thing as a bad genre, just rinkydink raconteurs who take great pleasure in exalting the what before the how. Many are quick to complain that the film absolves a white supremecist of his sins. Burden ultimately does the right thing, but the chilling string of evil events that snowed under Burden’s heart ultimately made it impossible to appreciate his extenuatory actions.