The reviews and the hype hadn't prepared me for Malcolm X at all. I expected it to be dull and worthy, a straight and long-winded retelling of a famous life. I found it lively, pretty dramatic, not all that much too long. It is a glossy parable of the sinner who came to virtue, found fame and power, was threatened and killed: the work, death and glorification of St Malcolm Martyr. I also found the film troubling because of its very glossiness, and troubling in ways I didn't at first understand.

LRB 25 March 1993 | PDF Download