Malcolm X

s struggle as a piece of entertainment. I don't mean to trivialise the subject matter, but if it wanted to be a documentary then it should have been more tightly focused on fact and less on the dramatisation of events, some real, some not. As a biopic, it kind of falls between two stools. We are presented with, essentially, a collective of unpleasant individuals who either started out that way, or were corrupted by the environments in which they existed and/or created - clearly illustrated, for example, by the way the women are treated by their husbands/bosses etc. This left me with an overwhelming feeling that had there been more general respect and decency on offer here - across the board - then a lot of the violence from both "sides" might have been avoided. It is a must see movie, but perhaps time has robbed it of much of it's potency and left us with a sad reflection of a time when vileness didn't care about your colour.