Dynamic Piece Of Speculative Fantasy

Rating: 7/10 (12 August 2004)

Seen the cast list for JFK ? Tommy Lee Jones , Gary Oldman , Sissy Spacek , Kevin Bacon , Jack Lemmon , Walter Matthau , Donald Sutherland and John Candy in one movie . Even if you're not keen on some of the aforementioned actors you'll be impressed by all of their performances and for this reason alone JFK is essential viewing . The only actor I wasn't impressed with was Kevin Costner but I don't recall ever being impressed by him in anything he's ever done . But don't let that put you off because the rest of the cast are superb
If that's not a strong enough recommendation let me point out the technical endeavor this movie required of mixing stock film footage and reconstructions which could have ended up making this movie a jarring unwatchable mess . Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia's editing is flawless while Robert Richardson's cinematography is outstanding and Oliver Stone maybe accused of over directing his later movies ( Notably NATURAL BORN KILLERS ) but here everything works perfectly from the director
Unfortunately Stone's script has to come in for the movie's most serious criticism - It's paranoid speculation , so much so that there's a danger JFK goes beyond fiction and becomes fantasy .
First off it insinuates Kennedy was killed because he wanted to pull out of Vietnam . Considering there's little evidence of this where does this source information come from ? It's a well known fact that Kennedy was a fan of special forces and increased the budget and manpower for the green berets . Does this strike you as a man who'd totally pull out of South East Asia ?
Secondly Vietnam would have meant very little from a pentagon chief to the American on the street in 1962/63 so we're to take it a country hardly anyone had heard of led to the murder of the President because he was going to pull US advisors out of Vietnam ? In that case I wonder why no one murdered Reagen because of he didn't send advisors to aid Christian phalangists in The Lebanon or why no one murdered Clinton because he didn't send advisors to aid the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan ?
Thirdly , there seems to be an agenda in the screenplay that Kennedy was murdered so that the Vietnam war would generate money for American companies. I can't disprove this conspiracy theory of course , but think about this - Why would America sacrifice 58,000 war dead , have another 250,000 Americans maimed for life and lose all moral prestige in order to build a few thousand helicopters ? They could have easily supplied billions of dollars worth of military equipment to South Vietnam ( America did do this under the Vietnamization program in the early 70s ) without getting caught up in the quagmire themselves
Oh and there's several other points the script kicks up that can't be proved or disproved like Lee Harvey Oswald being a double agent working for the CIA against world communism , a mysterious character only known as X who sees senior military chiefs planning to do away with Kennedy etc , things that only probably only exist in the imagination of Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone. Stone also wrote the Oscar winning screenplay of MIDNIGHT EXPRESS , read the source book by Billy Hayes and you'll realize that the screenplay to the book is a series of mass exaggerations and inventions on the part of Stone . He's done the same with JFK
I don't want to give the impression that I disliked the movie because I didn't . However much of the movie makes claims and insinuation that can't be backed up by facts and if you think there's nothing wrong making a conspiracy theory blockbuster involving human tragedy think about this : Someone makes a movie called 9/11 where Mossad agents are seen covertly entering the United States , everyone in the WTC called Rubinstien and Goldberg phone up sick on the day of the attacks and a fictional character in the film states that he's seen documents in the White House proving that the war on terrorism is a big conspiracy involving Israel's government and American oil companies who were both behind the attacks carried out on the 11th September 2001 . Does anyone else feel disgusted we might be seeing this production in the future ?