Delayed Reaction: Malcolm X

The Pitch: Spike Lee cashing in all his Do the Right Thing juice.

The story of how Malcolm Little became Malcolm X.

It sure would be cool to be a Spike Lee fan. I've liked his occasional movie. BlacKkKlansman was good. Inside Man is way more entertaining than I expected. But most of the time (Chi-Raq, Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever), I just find his movies exhausting. In a way, that's a compliment. It's a shame most directors don't come at their projects with as much energy as Spike Lee does. I don't come away from Spike Lee's movies thinking he's a genius though. His fans sure make it look fun though.

Malcolm X maintains my status quo with Spike Lee joints. Even though I've seen this movie before, it was 15 years ago and long enough ago that I didn't remember it much. First of all, I didn't remember how goddamn long it is. Too long. Needlessly long. And it's consistent with my stance that Spike Lee's movies are exhausting. Denzel Washington is excellent for all 3+ hours of it. The movie does a good job tracking Malcolm's evolution from criminal to religious figure. It wonderfully explains how Malcolm X reached the conclusions he did. Lee's direction is pretty expertly calibrated, with just enough flourishes to make it stand out.

I think I would've liked the movie a lot more without the "I am Malcolm X" part at the end. It feels incongruous with the rest of the movie. Spike Lee has a way of underlining his point too much that rubs me the wrong way. The whole movie before that is restrained; a complex portrait of a complicated figure. Then, the end basically says you either revere Malcolm X as a great man or you're wrong. It shuts down the interesting discussion everything before it was having. I'd rather have a movie ask me "what do you think?" than have a movie tell me "this is what you think". That's my read on the ending at least. Perhaps it wouldn't've bothered me as much if it came at the end of a 2 hour movie.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend