Comprehensive coverage of the high-water mark of the sixties Civil Rights movement. This movie is a great dramatisation of events in Selma, Alabama in 1965 as Martin Luther King’s Christian pacifist organisation geared up for its biggest stunt yet – a provocative walk from Selma to Montgomery, the State’s capital. This was really where the Civil Rights war was won, as King used the media coverage to leverage LBJ to acknowledge then eventually legislate on the issue of voting rights, against a storm of opposition in the South led by Alabama’s charismatic Governor, George Wallace.
MLK is essayed reasonably well by a young-looking David Oyelowo (though Eddie Murphy’s astonishing impression in ‘The Distinguished Gentleman’ is better!) It is remarkable that despite the fame of the movement and its leader, this is the first time we have really seen it portrayed on the big screen.
The movie shows the power of TV, the power of non-violence and the power of MLK’s leadership at a crucial point in history for his people. It could be a little bit more cinematic, but it gets the job done.
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