Read the book too!

Rating: 8/10 (18 August 2015)

I watched the movie recently after reading the book on which the movie's based: Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley. Probably the movie would have been more exciting and would have kept my attention more if I had watched the movie first.
While the book is a life changing one (nominated by The Times as one of the 10 most important books of the 20th century) the movie has more and less successful parts in portraying Malcolm's life.
While it catches your attention and does a great job showing the youth of Malcolm, in my opinion it fails to present the many long years he spent in prison and developed a widespread knowledge that allowed him to become a great debater from close to no education before and only showed flashes from his 12 years spent in the Nation of Islam. Still, the movie's 3,5 hour long - little too long for me.
After reading the book I felt he was a great teacher and fighter for human and minority rights while after watching the movie I had the feeling that he indeed preached hate - as many of his critics claimed.