Back, and to the left....Stone's second best picture behind Born on the Fourth

Rating: 10/10 (7 May 2003)

JFK (the director's cut version) is like a history lesson taught by an unconventional, usually thought provoking, and ultimately inspiring professor, transferred brilliantly onto celluloid. In fact this film, which has been put down by various critics (not film critics mind you) for it's lack of truth and tendency to go off on conspiracy theories. These critics, and there are plenty of them, entirely miss the point of the picture. This is the ONLY kind of film that a film maker like Stone could make, one that is a challenge to the system, one that questions, and with questions that, after such a hefty lesson, makes a whole lot of sense. JFK is in reality a film ABOUT America, about the feelings that go with a national tragedy, the assumptions, the cover-ups, the fears, control, and head question- why?
Stone makes Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner in one of his few superb performances, as a man who starts off believing the Warren Commission following the assassination on the day 11/22/63. Years later, he begins to get gradually drawn into the idea that a conspiracy could be, and after various interviews and queries, he finds that there may be more, his mind opened to the possibility of truth. He takes Clayton Laverne Shaw, alias Clay Bertrand (played to a deserved Oscar nominated stance by Tommy Lee Jones), to court, that he was in cahoots with not only Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman), but much, much more.
Personally, amongst other small items, I agreed with two main points on JFK - 1) there had to have been more than one shooter for the notion of the magic bullet theory, which states that a bullet went back and to the left, not to mention that the footage that shows this, within the film by Abraham Zabruder, is kept out of public view to this day. 2) in the exceptional cameo by Donald Sutherland as Mr. X, when he refers to the military industrial complex, and to the fact that in other parts of the world people already were hearing the entire history of Oswald was the killer before people in the United States even knew about the man, also to the black operations, which I definitely don't doubt exist.
However, by the end of the 205 minute investigative epic into the "coup de-ta" of our 35th president, even those who may question Garrison's (as well as Stone's) views can still see the film as a masterwork of feelings, an atmosphere of a specific time and mood of a country. The photography and editing, both Oscar winning, make the film all the more compelling, spell-binding, and very much unforgettable. Along with Sutherland's near show-stopping bit, other actors make very noteworthy appearances- Kevin Bacon, John Candy, Walter Matthau (in the plot thickening moment), Jack Lemmon, Ed Asner, and especially Joe Pesci, who's eyebrows steal his scenes. Based on books by Garrison and Jim Morrs. A++