Long, Slow, Too Wordy And Biased

Rating: 2/10 (26 April 2017)

Denzel Washington is a swell, pure gold actor, he can save and grace any movie he is in, and yes, he is great here, but this endless, unimaginable 3 hour and a half mammoth kills all his endeavors and assets burying them under a lead stone sheet of pretentiousness, boredom, and what is the worst offender, a very heavyweight preachy tone which becomes more and more acidic sour and then simply makes you cringe and run for some lightweight family comedy. What is also wrong? Bad pacing, very badly conceived flashback scenes and a very very tedious plot. Generally, such films are often a victim of their own weight - they sink like a marble brick, and they are too wordy. Like here, it is the same endless amount of smart speeches and oratories, but after two hours you feel a strong desire to switch to Mr. Bean or Benny Hill. Malcolm X was not a good man and he fell a victim of his own faith, we know that, and what he preached was wrong. So, no matter how much Spike Lee and Denzel tried, they failed to make us like this cold, ruthless, icy man of no sorrow. I felt no sorrow either for him or for his work, and the documentary footage of great late Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr only proved how much better this Baptist minister was than that loud and brash preacher. The film only hit the nail on the right head