Powerful, political, engaging and important; there isn't much JFK does wrong.

Rating: 8/10 (25 January 2008)

I think JFK as a film succeeds on multiple levels. It manages to inform and educate without ever feeling like a lecture; it manages to entertain and engross without ever feeling like it's trying too hard to either offend you or maintain your interest with cheap gimmicks; it manages to create enough doubt and give you enough material to make up your own mind without ever feeling like it's insulting or patronising you. I very recently saw the recent acclaimed film The Queen which revolved around the death of a global icon, Lady Diana, but where that one was more about reaction, JFK is more about action.
The reason I found JFK to be better than The Queen is because it tells you of the assassination and then jumps forward three years, showing you how one man came to work out a possible conspiracy theory. Likewise with any subject; create a theory, a hypothesis and research your area of study. It can be science (Newton  Gravity), mathematics (John Nash); hell even film/cinema (Mulvey  The Gaze) but Jim Garrison (Costner) comes up with and works out a theory that Kennedy was perhaps killed in ways different to what we would all believe and that Oswald (Oldman) is not as guilty as you would think. This is the basis for the film and it works an absolute delight. Yes, the film's narrative is a little confusing and difficult to follow but keep reminding yourself that this is a theory one man is trying to crack; a sort of 'who dun it' in the vast world of 1960's America but the detective is one mere man with some researchers to back him up.
Comparing the film to another 21st Century detective tale is perhaps a little silly to do if I was comparing them in terms of quality but JFK very much reminded me of recent effort Zodiac; one man tries to find the truth behind a major event that remains unexplained but whilst Robert Graysmith was a comic book artist, Garrison is a man of the law anyway and we accept that he is up to the challenge. But JFK is arguably better because there is no definitive point of view. Witnesses and people who might know something give their own accounts through their own flashbacks; this is JFK acknowledging that its hero cannot know of other peoples flashbacks if he was not present at the time and thus; gives us impressive and dramatic black and white scenes revolving around either the death or events taking place somewhere else with someone else. Some examples here include Jack's (Lemmon) memory of being pistol whipped; Willie's (Bacon) memory of the gang talking about how great it would be if Kennedy died and Clay's (Lee Jones) memories of a homosexual romp at his house  the genius here is that each flashback may be the truth, it may be a lie or it may be mere memory catching up with its harbinger.
Make no mistake that the film is political. This is a brave film from Oliver Stone and one that I'm sure opened the eyes of the people watching it; not just at what it was saying but perhaps made them question the assassination altogether. Getting back to The Queen; when Diana did die, the country was in morning and I can imagine a similar reaction to Kennedy in 60s America but how stupid, perhaps embarrassed, would those people have felt if they'd realised it was all a lie and that the government had her killed due to insider reasons? After the reaction and the funeral (which is in the top 5 most watched televised items in Britain's history) and everything else; how perhaps anticlimactic would it be if we all learnt she was deliberately murdered; indeed an inquest happening round about now might just un-turn some facts no one wants to know. But this is the film JFK at its core; one man who wants everyone to build up the courage to perhaps realise the inevitable: their country's government has been lying and what was once an event that brought the nation together; now motivates the people to turn away from the state.
JFK would have us believe a group of homosexuals set up a complex idea that killed Kennedy, for the first half. But the checkpoint arrives in the form of 'X' (Sutherland) who gives Garrison clues and information just when everything seems lost. After the press publicise Garrison's attempts, Jim is embarrassed and lost but it works FOR him as the papers are how 'X' discovers Jim to be so close. His monologue, maybe one of the longest if not memorable from 1990s cinema; sways not only Jim's view but ours: maybe this group are not so guilty and the government are up to no good. The fact 'X' thinks that the government thought that he was so good at cracking these things, he was shipped to the middle of snowy nowhere, could be an ego trip on X's behalf but it could be the disturbing truth; we might never know. JFK basically tells us one thing for the first half, telling us the argument's one side before flipping the proverbial pancake and letting the other half simmer whilst the one in focus now has its very own moment. JFK is almost a guerrilla film: its use of politics, its fast edits of real footage; perhaps subliminally blinding us with placards of 'Hooray for JFK' and its strong feeling of realism as it dawns on you that you are not watching fiction is eerie as it is brilliant. Apart from the genius of the depth; the film is still well acted with a sprinkling of stars, great dialogue and impressive cinematography. The argument Garrison delivers in the courtroom is fascinating as it is brilliantly executed, twinned with Oswald's 'real' actions  a film that will captivate and spellbound, at least until 2039.