When Oliver Stone Still Had His Nerve

Rating: 10/10 (4 March 2009)

JFK is a masterpiece of film assembly. It contains the best editing I've ever seen (documentary footage is seamlessly interwoven with the new dramatizations). Robert Richardson's photography brilliantly switches between different film stocks and colours.
For these reasons alone, the film is worth studying frame by frame.
Then there is the script and the actors. It is remarkable how well the screenwriters and the actors are able to articulate entire prose passages of historical information into easily digestible chunks. As Mr. X, Donald Sutherland comes off as the most impressive, talking a mile a minute with some of the trickiest, most complex dialogue ever delivered on screen.
The entire cast is a phenomenon. Everyone from Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau to Kevin Costner and Tommy Lee Jones is here. Director Oliver Stone's ability to direct them all in different, individualy unique roles is an accomplishment that easily makes up for his recent string of duds.