Malcolm X Reviews

Malcolm X is cool. 

(Mu) A 'fresco', not at all a 'fiasco'. Malcolm is always marginal and fanatical, when founds his own group and become more politial centered, is too late. He planted all he received and Spike is not too worried in the final balance.... The woman has a very strong character for the 90's...

Notes:
*I have been meaning to watch this for some time, but just never got around to it.
*It has an amazing cast which is definitely a plus.
*It's also highly regarded.
*This was actually based off of Malcolm X's autobiography that was written by Alex Haley.
*Arnold Perl who wrote and directed the documentary from the 70s helps to write the screenplay here.
*I have seen a decent amount of Spike Lee's joints and Chi-raq so far is my favorite while the rest have still been fairly good watches.
*Anyways I am sure this one will be even better.

Pros:
*I knew this was going to end up being my favorite Spike Lee joint.
*I learned a lot about the people here than I realized.
*The acting was remarkable of course given the cast I'm not surprised.
*I liked the incorporation of videos that happened around that time.
*It keeps you interested from start to finish despite the lengthy runtime.
*There were people I didn't even realize were in this which was cool.

Cons:
*The runtime is very long so it takes time to sit and watch.
*I would have liked for some idea of what happened with people and such.

Verdict:
I would say this is a very important film. Sure it's on the long side, but it's worth watching when you have the time to. I learned stuff I didn't know about and I thought it was quite interesting. I didn't expect some of the things that had happened so it was an educational experience as well as entertaining. If you haven't seen it yet I implore that you do.

I already saw this movie but since it was such a long time ago, I was really eager to check it out again. First of all, when was the last time that Spike Lee had actually delivered a decent movie? It was probably ‘Inside Man’ which he made already a decade ago and his recent work has been either really obscure and/or really underwhelming. Anyway, at the beginning of the 90’s, Lee was one of the most promising directors at work and this movie was definitely his most ambitious one. When I first saw this movie, I must have been 14-15 years old and, even though of course I had heard about the man, I must admit that I didn’t know much about Malcolm X and his ideas. Only therefore I thought it was already a fascinating picture. I mean, I have always been interested by politics so to have such an epic tale about one of the most notorious black American political figures was just really neat. Obviously, for Denzel Washington who just had his breakthrough a few years before with ‘Glory’, it was pretty much the role of his lifetime and many (including myself) think that, instead of rewarding him for ‘Training Day’, he should have won instead the Academy Award for this great performance. The tricky thing about this flick is that Spike Lee greatly admired the man and, therefore, the subject was maybe too close to him and he didn’t dare being more critical towards this historical figure. Anyway, to conclude, even though I think the whole thing was a little too straightforward, it was still a really solid biopic and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in the subject.

Good movie, Very long, but still really good. Denzel Washington's best role of his entire career. Spike Lee does a great job directing. It is very underrated. And really good. 9.3

In my opinion, this is the role that should've won Mr. Washington the Oscar, even more so than Training Day. In this movie, Denzel is Malcolm X. This is one of those rare instances where an actor actually becomes the person whom he is portraying. Denzel Washington tranforms himself into the man who went from being a small-time crook named "Little", to become the larger than life civil rights leader named "X".
A great biopic that intrinsically depicts the various transitions involved in one man's spiritual journey that led a singular letter in the alphabet to become a definitive part of American history books.
Definitely my favorite Spike Lee Joint.