The story of these two wife's of great political leaders in the fight to end racism could have been made into a movie that actually took the time to care about these women. However this attempt is just another lifetime movie that comes off as forgettable look at the two gigantic lives of these two women. Betty Shabazz (Mary J. Blige) and Coretta Scott King (Angela Bassett) are two women who in the late sixties both lost their husbands by assassination, these men were Malcolm X (Lindsay Owen Pierre) and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Malik Yoba) who both fought for the rights of the black community coming up with success but also defeats. The story quickly changes from any political story to the life's of the women as we see them live on and become friends dealing with family drama on the part of Betty but Coretta is the one that stays on the politics side. I came out not liking the film for many reasons, the film has a "lifetime movie" quality which just makes a film hard to watch no matter how short it is (this film is about 90 minutes long but feels much longer). The acting was hard to watch because the writing failed them as it presented these strong women as quite to proud in a bad way. Angela Bassett plays Coretta Scott King and it is sad to see this once great actress be pushed to the world of a lifetime movie, she really try's her to act past the bad writing but she can only do decent work compared to her once great filmography in the early nighties. Mary J. Blige plays Dr. Betty Shabazz and she is not an actress which really is my biggest complaint about her performance. She is given the most work to do but she does not have the talent able to hold her own in this character that is too big for her. Bad directing and writing about these great women of black history (during black history month) is a very cruel thing to do in my mind.
EPISODE GRADE: E (MVP: Angela Bassett)
EPISODE GRADE: E (MVP: Angela Bassett)