The film is tightly structured and narrated over archive footage of king, with some other contemporary footage mixed in. In terms of visual material, the film does not bring any new unforseen archive films to the table and a lot of the images used in the film are used several times. With the original sound bites however, the film does a great job in opening the context to the audiences. What the film lacks in new visual material, it gains in its content as it is based on new research of the FBI archives. Great learning material for history or social studies classes.

Very good documentary that goes depth inside USA undemocratic and racist state, far away from widespread shallow speech and self-image of a country of freedom and democracy. As usual in dictatorahips, FBI not only inbestigated but also harassed Martin Luther King in order to dampen anti-racist struggle in the country. Lots of good information, footage and interviews are found in this important documentary on the Black question and on the serious discussion of what democracy is.

"MLK/FBI" is a decent overview of the FBI's surveillance and efforts to ruin Martin Luther King and, by extension, also does a fair job of summarizing some of the civil rights leader's achievements. Although some of the archival footage employed for the documentary's expository mode looks newfound and, reportedly, is based on some recently declassified documents, there isn't much if anything new discussed here.

I'm not an expert on King, but I've read about him over the years, seen other documentaries, visited the hotel-turned-museum where he was assassinated, and it's a challenge to point to one new thing in this doc that I learned. Generally, it's what anyone with even a passing recreational interest in 1950s-1960s American history would already know. Maybe there aren't any other documentaries that focus primarily on this angle, though, so I'll rate it positively for that. One may check out "King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis" (1970), for instance, if they want a grander overview of King's activities, and there've been many others, along with documentaries about Hoover and the FBI. We even have biopics such as "J. Edgar" (2011) and "Selma" (2014). In the end, the desire is palpable to release the FBI tapes already that are scheduled to be unsealed in 2027 (which talk about arbitrary), as at least then there'd be new material for the historians and documentarians to work with.

Otherwise, as it is, too much time is wasted here musing over King's sex life. Yes, he had extramarital relations; move on. I read about that and mentioned it in a biographical speech I delivered back in secondary school; it's not a revelation. The most scandalous "new" item, I suppose, is the FBI's rape accusation, but there's nothing really to say about such a claim from the racist organization that was out to ruin the man if there's no evidence available to substantiate it. The filmmakers could've used the same tact here that they offered J. Edgar Hoover, for whom they only hint photographically of his rumored homosexuality and never mention the more dubious claims of transvestism.

The commentary on the FBI's actions against the civil rights movement is better, including contextualizing it as part of mainstream American white supremacism of the era. Perhaps, not enough credence is given to the fact that the FBI, however, was part of a federal government where administrations were offering support for civil rights out of one side of their mouth and eventually legislatively at the same time as they were approving Hoover's surveillance and intimidation campaign. Conspiracy theories regarding the FBI's involvement (or at least willful negligence) in King's murder are largely glossed over, too.

As an introduction or overview, "MLK/FBI" does well enough, as I said, though. Plus, I like the archival footage approach with the voiceover exposition as opposed to talking-head interviews. Fortunately, I recognized some of the film clips shown, for which the identification here was inconsistent. "The FBI Story" (1959), for example, gets a caption, but not, as far as I noticed at least, "The Birth of a Nation" (1915) or "The March" (1963). Even if I saw the narrators' faces, however, I wouldn't really know who most of them are, although hearing James Comey remark on what he considers the most shameful aspect of the agency's history (the letter basically attempting to blackmail King into suicide) is interesting, to say the least. But, that's a whole other doc on bureau shenanigans.