TIFF 2020: MLK/FBI Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Many audiences may be aware of the famed American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and his subsequent assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968 but some may not know as much about the unbelievable true story behind the events that led to his untimely demise. MLK/FBI is the latest gripping documentary that attempts to shed some light on MLK and his contentious relationship with the U.S. government, specifically J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI.. While it’s easy to suspect the U.S. government’s involvement, some will surely be surprised at the extent of their involvement and when it actually started.

Thanks to some newly declassified files and interviews with prominent figures in that time period, MLK/FBI chronicles the rise in prominence of Hoover’s FBI alongside MLK’s rise as an icon in the civil rights movement. However, the government had been monitoring African-American activists and groups long before but there was just something different about MLK. His incredible charisma and soft-spoken nature allowed him to gain a considerable following that then put him on the radar of the U.S. government which considered him a threat. Meanwhile, the rising threat of communism became intertwined with the civil rights movement. In reality, it was Hoover’s FBI and their arguably racist ideologies that saw him as the threat to the Kennedy and then the Johnson administrations.

From there, MLK/FBI shifted to the FBI’s campaign to discredit MLK. Some may be surprised by the extent of how far they go to do so but despite the eye-opening evidence that was uncovered (there is still more evidence set to be unsealed by 2027), there was only so much they can do as his power was undeniable. While he may have made some real headway in the movement, there was clearly still more work left to do. Something had to give and the rest was history as MLK’s criticism of the Vietnam war was definitely a moot point. As far as his assassination was concerned, the jury is still out but the film does raise valid concerns about how his legacy should be perceived.

At the end of the day, MLK/FBI may not change any minds but it highlights a dark chapter in U.S. history, a a story that deserves to be told.

still courtesy of TIFF

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.