Religion as a tool, not a weapon!

Rating: 7/10 (13 May 2007)

This was not a great movie, though it had some great parts. In general it was too long and was very slow to start. Being almost three and a half hours was a little excessive. One of my friends saw a ten minute clip and with about two minutes of background on the movie, understood almost the entire movie. Looking back on it, I don't know that there is any one scene you could take out and it would still be the same, but three and a half hours is just way to long to be watching a movie that slow.
On the other hand though, the message in those ten minutes was so important, but I feel is over looked by most of the people who watch this movie. The ideas and values that Malcolm X had and how he changed through the movie culminated in his acceptance of white people and people of other religions. He saw that freedom, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not characteristics of Muslims alone, rather that all man (almost all man) wants exactly what he wanted. He saw that his religion was actually a tool to bring people together rather than an excuse to keep them apart.