I'm sorry, but I guess you had to see it in 1981.Part of the distaste here is that it doesn't really compare to Spike Lee's last good film.And the other part is Morgan Freeman. It's really hard to see him as Malcolm X. That's not to say that he isn't a good actor, and it is not to say that Washington is a better actor.Push comes to shove anyone will take Freeman over Washington for most roles...and Freeman does his best, but he just doesn't have it in his personality to capture Malcolm X. He's lacking the ominous intensity he's, well......it's honestly just really hard to see Freeman as anyone that's ever been militant.It's not unlike his role in Glory, or Robin hood, you can see him as the teacher, the father figure of a group of soldiers...but the moment he picks up a rifle (or in Robin Hood a sword) and threatens to harm someone else...you lose that willing suspension of disbelief.It may be easy to see him in the role of a Civil Rights leader...but not one as Militant as Malcolm X.It may just be me, but I like Freeman because I get wise and peaceful father-figure vibe off him, or even just the teacher vibe...and that's only a small part of Malcolm X.It just didn't sit right. The casting ruined the film for me. But like I said, it could be that I watched it in 2017, after the Spike Lee adaptation of his life, and not in 1981 before Freeman established himself as the teacher-father figure for the audience.

The DVD jacket says "Highlighted by newsreel footage and insightful interviews, Death of a Prophet is the tragic, truthful and awe-inspiring story of the last 24hours of Malcolm X." Now, wouldn't a reasonable person conclude this is a historically accurate account based on that description? I did, yet the cars are frequently from the 70's, "Malcolm" discuss the death of Dr. King with an elderly man, even though he died before Dr. King! I guess he really was a prophet! There are more examples, but you get the point.This is really sloppy movie making. I'm surprised Morgan Freeman would associate himself with such a jumbled-up mess.

This film is NOT about the last 24 hours of Malcolm X's life. It is a 'what if' fantasy that shows Malcolm walking around New York in the years following his death, relating to the black movements in America and abroad. One can tell this isn't about the actual last 24 hours of his life from countless details, such as hippies (that movement wouldn't start for well over a year after Malcolm's death) a bookseller (in a dashiki!) talking about the death of the Kennedy children and Martin, footage of black people in afros on a TV discussion program (with no white host - remember, Malcolm died in February of 1965!), black FBI agents... the list goes on and on. The film takes liberties with history to make points about the impact Malcolm had, but such a form of storytelling can be dangerous, since obviously the one other reviewer here thought this film was an actual documentation of the last day of Malcolm's life. Who knows how many others think the same thing? I don't mind filmmakers taking such liberties, after all, one has a right to speak metaphorically about the 'prophet' Malcolm. But it's done in such a slipshod way. Morgan Freeman is one of my favorite actors but he portrays Malcolm as if he was made of stone: a dangerous thing when portraying a martyr. It's vital that people know that Malcolm was a flesh and blood human being. Everyone in this film though, is acting as if they were under extreme hypnosis. The whole film is lethargic, and will surely be confusing to those who don't know very much about the civil rights movement, or the independence movements throughout Africa. I guess for 1981, this film was better than nothing since Malcolm still hadn't been acknowledged by the film world (other than a documentary in 1972). But as long as one is going to watch a docudrama on Malcolm, skip this junk and watch Spike Lee's magnificent "Malcolm X". You'll get a much more focused, passionate, and correctly detailed account of the man and what it was that he stood for.

This movie tells of the last 24 hrs of X's life.. Morgan Freeman does this film justice.. A must see for any X fans.. Has real life X's daughter in it also.