Movie Review

MLK/FBI puts civil rights leader and agency under a microscope

The film is based on David Garrow’s 1981 book The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Photo courtesy of IFC Films

Few Americans are more admired than slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Yet at the same time, he was a man whose personal life was, shall we say, complicated, and whose activities drew the attention — warranted or unwarranted — of the FBI for a good portion of his life.

All of that is examined in the new documentary MLK/FBI, which uses FBI documents that were declassified in 2019 as the jumping-off point to try to understand why the agency put King under such scrutiny. Directed by Sam Pollard, the film is based on David Garrow’s 1981 book The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr., a subject he explored further in an article after the declassified documents were released.

Garrow is one of eight people who is interviewed for the film, although Pollard makes the unusual choice of not showing any of the interviewees on camera. Instead, all the audience sees is a brief chyron with a person’s name while historical footage, photos, and movies about the FBI are rolled out as visuals. While we occasionally get to see video of King and other figures of the time speaking, the majority of the film is silent while the faceless interviewees speak, a technique that is not very dynamic and gets repetitive.

Pollard and his team do their best to approach the film in an even-handed manner. They show how many people in the U.S. at the time were still in fear of Communism taking over, and how the FBI capitalized on that fear to paint King with a red brush, using an association with suspected Communist Stanley Levison as justification to start surveilling him. Naturally, good old-fashioned racism played no small part in their attention, with King’s rise and cause in general seen as detrimental by many white people.

Surveillance eventually turned to wiretaps on King’s and his associates' phones, as well as informants embedded with him, and it was then that they discovered what is now common knowledge: That King was unfaithful to his wife. The FBI tried to exploit this information to undermine King’s moral authority in a variety of ways, most distastefully when they sent a supposed recording of King with another woman to his house, along with a letter suggesting that he kill himself.

The interviewees, which also include King confidants/friends Andrew Young and Clarence Jones, historians Beverly Gage and Donna Murch, and former FBI agent Charles Knox, give some insight into this history, although the format of the film hampers them. Because the footage often doesn’t match exactly what a person is talking about, viewers may find themselves losing the thread of a specific point being made. There’s something to be said for not going the traditional “talking head” route with a documentary, but Pollard may have leaned too far in the opposite direction.

The level of hatred aimed at King late in his life, especially when he took a public stance against the war in Vietnam, is both easy and difficult to believe. But the fact that this loathing was so well-known and that the FBI had constant surveillance on King at the time of his assassination calls into question why they couldn’t have prevented it. The film insinuates that James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing him, may not have been to blame, but stops short of outright accusing the FBI of being involved.

Some may not want to watch a documentary that’s not a complete veneration of King, especially on the weekend preceding the holiday with his name on it. But MLK/FBI is an important, if imperfect, look at a slice of history that many may not know well.

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MLK/FBI is screening in select theaters and is available via premium video on demand.

Movie Review

New biopic 'Jimmy' salutes Jimmy Stewart's service in World War II

KJ Apa in Jimmy

Photo courtesy of Papaian Studios

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Actor Jimmy Stewart, thanks to movies such as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Shop Around the Corner, and The Philadelphia Story, had the reputation early in his career as the everyman in Hollywood, someone to whom most audiences could relate. That became even more true when Stewart entered the military during World War II, a period that is explored in the new biopic, Jimmy.

Stewart (KJ Apa) was riding high in 1941, coming off his first (and only) Oscar win for The Philadelphia Story. As depicted in the film, his life is upended when he receives a military draft notice as the U.S. prepares for war. He’s determined to serve, but people like studio head Louis B. Mayer (Jason Alexander) try to talk him out of it. Already an experienced pilot, he eventually joins the war in Europe, flying the B-24 bomber.

Despite his celebrity status, Stewart requests to be treated the same as any other soldier, which means flying multiple missions over enemy territory. He moves up the ranks, becoming a leader tasked with, among other things, reporting the deaths of service members to their families. He also starts a friendship that develops into a romance with Lady Julia (Kara Killmer), giving him a distraction from the horrors of war.

Directed by Aaron Burns and written by Justin Strawhand, the film has the clear goal of being a hagiography for Stewart, showing all of his good qualities and few of his bad ones. In fact, the character of Stewart is harder on himself than the actual movie is, chastising himself over the deaths of fellow soldiers that he likely could not have prevented. The filmmakers go to great lengths to show how good and well-respected Stewart was, something that may well be true, but doesn’t make for great drama.

The bulk of the film features Stewart at war, following him and others as they fly multiple missions and commiserate over the price of combat. The sequences are fine, but the film’s budget does not appear to be high, and so the CGI needed to recreate the scenes is noticeably subpar. Because Burns and Strawhand usually keep to surface-level storytelling and don’t go deep on any character besides Stewart, his time at war is engaging but slight.

The film is bookended by Stewart and Frank Capra (Max Casella) making It’s a Wonderful Life, Stewart’s first film after coming back from war. It’s here where the movie becomes most interesting as Stewart, still affected by his war experience, struggles to bring the character of George Bailey to life. The behind-the-scenes look at the film-within-the-film and the recreations of its iconic scenes are catnip for anyone who knows/loves the Christmas classic.

Apa, best known for starring as Archie on the TV show Riverdale, does extremely well as Stewart. He nails Stewart’s quavering voice and the way he ambles about plays right into the actor’s established persona. Casella and Killmer get the most play in supporting roles, and each does solid work as characters trying to understand Stewart. Alexander, Sarah Drew as Hedda Hopper, and Rob Riggle as a colonel each go a little too big in their respective parts.

Jimmy is probably best watched as an approximation of the man Stewart was in the 1940s, not as something that’s completely true to life. The film elides or stretches the truth on multiple occasions, which is par for the course in biopics. It could have used some stronger storytelling to make Stewart feel like a real person, not merely a replica of the famous actor.

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Jimmy is now playing in theaters.

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