In any campaign good intelligence is always invaluable. My favorite scene in Selma is when Martin Luther King played by David Oyelowo is talking to the local activists in Selma. He tells a story of an action tried at a Georgia town where the sheriff might have been a redneck, but he was a smart redneck. He took the peaceful protesters away by stretcher without a single nightstick raised. No footage of brutality for the media to expose. So King asks the question, is Sheriff Jim Clark of Lowndes County, Alabama that much of an ignorant cracker that he won't control or want to control his deputies and 'volunteers' when push come to shove? The answer he gets is an unequivocal yes. And so it's decided that Selma is where we make our stand.

I was all of 18 when the real events of Selma occurred. In the wake of the Kennedy assassination the Civil Rights Act was finally passed. Now in the wake of Lyndon Johnson's election in his own right as president part of the Selma story is how Martin Luther King and many others made sure Johnson didn't forget his commitment. Civil rights laws forbidding discrimination is one thing, but without political power because black people are ruthlessly and systematically kept from voting it means very little when no redress can be had at the polls.

Tom Wilkinson plays the harassed and beleaguered LBJ who truthfully did have a lot on his plate in 1965. He was about to start a war on poverty with campaigns on many levels. He also was about to escalate a war in Vietnam and that part of the story is judiciously left out, probably rightly for the purposes of this picture and its narrative flow. But it was there nonetheless. Lest Johnson be distracted by the good and bad things he wanted to do it was up to the Civil Rights activists to keep his feet to the fire and the flames well stoked.

So it was in 1965 and the events dramatized here I remember the media sending these images around the world to see. A dark side of America was exposed, an evil that had to be dealt with forthwith. What we get in Selma is both the public and private stories.

David Oyelowo and Carmen Ejogo play Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King and do a good enough job that we see their private lives. Tim Roth plays Governor George Wallace and interesting seeing two British players Wilkins and Roth in the confrontation scene between the president and the governor. Dylan Baker plays the serpentine and evil J.Edgar Hoover the closest thing we've had to permanent government. He fed spicy bits to 8 presidents and no one liked that better than LBJ. It appealed to the more prurient aspects of his nature.

Wallace to had his own Hoover and it was in the form of Al Lingo the head of the Alabama State Troopers. Lingo is a truly sinister figure and he's played here by Stephen Root and he has one scene with Roth as they decide what to do about the civil rights marchers. Lingo had his own intelligence service to report about Communists and his definition was those agitated for black people to not know their place. Later on he was active in Wallace's national campaigns and other ultra right wing causes.

Selma got one Oscar for Best Song entitled Glory which was a blend of both gospel and rap styles. Not that I'm a big fan of the latter, still it was a deserved winner. Selma was also nominated for Best Picture. It should have won in my book.

This film is about one of the defining moments in American history, one which many like myself saw unfold and one where many participants of the march from Selma to Montgomery are still with us. Their story needs to be seen by generations to come.

The movie starts with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (David Oyelowo) receiving the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey) faces impossible hurdles to register to vote. President Lyndon B. Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) wants to concentrate on his war on poverty rather than voting rights. MLK decides to concentrate on Selma, Alabama. Opposing him are Gov. George Wallace (Tim Roth) and Sheriff Jim Clark.

I love some of the behind-the-scene discussions like the two kids from Albany. In the same token, the president strikes me as a little off. The movie needs to raise up a villain for the story. The president shouldn't fill any part of that role. It is more fitting for Wallace and the Sheriff. This movie needs some more from behind their lines.

It's a mostly quiet movie and it doesn't always get the balance between sincerity and thrilling. Some of the really sincere scenes drag. The big exception is Jimmie Lee Jackson's father at the hospital. The power exists in that man's face and the pain is all too evident. Of course, there is the first attempt crossing the bridge. That is a harrowing sequence delivering the same shock that the TV viewers of that day must have felt. David Oyelowo does a very nice reserved job with some big moments. Despite a few off notes, this movie is a powerhouse.

Once one gets used to the fact that the film of the original events in Selma, Alabama, is more interesting than this fictionalized piece, it starts to become a disappointment. The young man who plays Martin Luther King, Jr., does a decent job, but there is something lacking. When we hear speeches by King, there is a power to his delivery. Something is missing here. While a British actor plays King and he does great with a southern American, his delivery lacks the punch. What makes the movie worthwhile is the portrayal of the marches, all three of them. The first is so graphic in its violence as those marshals block the area on the other side of the bridge. Also missing is lively dialogue among the leaders of the movement. They are so stiff where they should be fighting among each other, expressing their fears and bringing us into the process. Lyndon Johnson is seen as the bad guy (along with, of course, George Wallace),but his portrayal is stilted. Where is that Texas accent. He is so impressed in our minds. There should be more bluster and casual dominance in this figure. While this is a decent rendering of a major event in the development of man's quest for freedom, it falls a bit flat.