Logically and historically ludicrous ... and damn compelling

Rating: 9/10 (19 January 2004)

My review for what it's worth....
I wish I could explain my attraction to this film. I'm not an Oliver Stone fan and I avoid Kevin Costner. I'm no conspiracy buff, but even if I were, I believe the one rather shakily outlined here would still be too absurd for me: it seems to be an agglomeration of most of the various conspiracy theories associated with the assassination of JFK, finished off with some shiny new rococo bits dug from Stone's subconscious, and all of it pretty much requiring the participation or knowledge of something like 30% of the western hemisphere. I'm frankly annoyed by Stone's portrayal of Kennedy as revolutionary cut down before he could perform the great acts he was destined for -- Kennedy was a shallow, self-serving little fellow who had few scruples and way too many issues.
As if all that weren't enough, I don't like its portrayal of gay men, it has what must be filmdom's longest monologue, and at something like 3 hours, it's way over my usual tolerance.
So I should hate it, yes? But somehow, despite all of the above, the damn film **works**.
The acting is tremendous (Donald Sutherland plus Kevin Bacon *plus* Joe Pesci PLUS Tommy Lee Jones ... need I go on?). Even Costner, who normally leaves me lukewarm, is great. Intentionally or not, there's a perfect creepy undercurrent to his "hero's" obsessive pursuit (somehow quietly emphasized by those damn upright, uptight hornrimmed glasses of his).
Yes, the plot is ludicrous, but Stone's passionate insistence that *something* was going on leaks through every frame, compelling the viewer to follow the plot's leaps and twists with the drugged sense of inevitability usually experience in dream logic.
That monologue? Done by an actor I don't care for, expounding a theory I don't buy -- and I was flipping spellbound. The film is just... excellent. Annoyingly excellent, because it's just damn wrong -- but excellent cinema, anyway.