An Eye Opening Experience

Rating: 8/10 (13 January 2015)

'Selma' is a good movie about a great human being. I'll admit I didn't know much about the actual events, so the movie was quite interesting. The movie focuses on a pivotal moment during the Civil Rights Movement, which focuses on Martin Luther King Jr. trying to march through Selma to Montgomery. Selma is told with with a solid amount of emotion, the events the movie portrays really gets your blood boiling because of how arrogant and hateful people could be back then. This is a powerful movie about a powerful individual who united thousands of people for one great cause and the movie itself truly captures the spirit of Dr King very well. The acting is of course phenomenal, some of the best of the year, especially when you hear David O's natural voice!
But what really held 'Selma' back was the whole LBJ storyline and how they made him out as more of a bad buy more than anything else. After the movie I went and read about the events and a lot of other people out there agree (or were upset) about how the directed made him look. He was actually the one who gave MLK the idea to go to Selma and protest there, not Dr King. He also was a very strong supporter of the Civil Rights Movement and was constantly (but secretly) working on solving the situation on a legislative level. So if you are looking for a more factual movie about the events that took place, look for a documentary rather than this. Don't get me wrong, this is an eye opening movie, but it does have it's weaknesses, particularly the portrayal of LBJ and Dr King's personal life storyline, which is quite brief and doesn't really add much to the story. Outside of those complaints, the movie sends a very strong message and a great one at that.
Is this movie the Best Picture of the year? No, it's a good movie with a heart at the center of the story, but it lacks to energy and gut punching ability that '12 Years a Slave' had last year to make it truly something special.