Review - Selma (2014)

Rating: 3/10 (18 February 2015)

As Cinemark's Oscar Movie Week reaches its midway point, we come to possibly the most controversial film in the running for Best Picture this year. A lot of people are confused as to why Selma was only nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Song. Frankly, I don't think it should have been nominated for either.
First of all, from what I understand, the reason it was "snubbed" (I really hate that word, by the way) is because the studio was late in releasing its screeners to voters. It seems that most people just never saw the movie because of this and the fact that it had a sparse release in the first place. So how did it get nominated for Best Picture? I can only imagine it was word-of-mouth. People said it deserved it, so maybe voters wrote it in to give it a chance, and it just so happened to knock Gone Girl and Foxcatcher out to edge its way in.
Selma may be the first major studio production depicting the life of Martin Luther King Jr., but there is nothing original or even remarkable about this film. It has the production value of a made- for-TV movie and the acting to match. It's better than something as abysmally idiotic as The Butler, and it's not as politically manipulative as something like Fruitvale Station.
On the other hand, Selma is to the civil rights movement what countless religious movies are to religion. Even if it has heart and its intentions are pure, which I do believe they are, the production quality just isn't enough to make it relative or persuasive. The politicians are flat and their interactions are repetitive. The movie follows a pattern of King arguing with President Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), followed by King talking to his wife, followed by a protest, followed by King returning to Johnson. It just goes on and on like that for the duration of the film with not a whole lot being accomplished or progressing.
David Oyelowo is not a bad actor, but he does not make an inspirational King, and virtually nothing King does in the film has any bearing on the story. The plot only moves forward when outside forces effect the situation. I feel like that's an injustice to King, to not make it more clear and apparent that what he was doing and saying was an important factor in getting to where we are today.
Personally, I would have made a film that ended with King getting his Nobel Prize rather than opening with it. The fact is that the Selma story just isn't very interesting. If it had been the climax to a story of the entire journey, it could have made for an epic, emotional conclusion. Instead, the movie is just a drawn out mess of repetitious preaching.