As fact, this movie is a disaster, as fiction, it's mediocre.

Rating: Null/10 (19 June 2000)

When this movie first came out, I was very skeptical--Oliver Stone has a penchant for making absurd movies with extreme messages and hit or miss stylization. "Born on the Fourth" of July" was utter garbage and "Salvador" was ugly when it wasn't being patently ridiculous. I ended up not seeing JFK because of the reviews. I'd gotten enough info on it to realize that it was going to be something from Oliver Stone's vivid fantasy life and I wanted no part of that. Since that time Olive Stone has become something of a laughing stock and subject of ridicule when it comes to his silly conspiracy theories. So, when JFK came on cable the other day, I decided to see what it was all about.
If you take the basic premise as fiction, which it clearly is, the core of the movie becomes pretty interesting: A secret cabal of anti-communists in the Federal government wants to involve the U.S. in Vietnam and feel JFK is weak, since he was so lacking in resolve during the Bay of Pigs. In fact it's somewhat similar to "Seven Days in May" in that respect. Taken as a basic fictional political thriller, the movie is still pretty mediocre--Jim Garrison's character is not sympathetic at all--he's self righteous and condescending, and why he's doing any of this as a New Orleans District Attorney is somewhat mystifying. The real flaw is that it's bloated and ponderous, it's complexity is mostly a plus, but it gets boring after a while.
But even fictional movies must hang together. The movie never really deals with the fact that it was JFK who put the first combat troops into Vietnam and was busy escalating the conflict when he was assassinated--not trying to extract us as the movie represents. In addition, the whole "back and to the left" concept is iffy--bullets usually go in to a person causing a small hole and exit causing a big hole. The Garrison character posited the last bullet came from the front, whereas the Zapruder film shown in the movie showed a bullet exiting Kennedy's head in the front.
Still, minor points aside, if you watch this movie looking for history--you're bound to be disappointed, there's too much outright fiction intermingled with the legitimate questions raised. For those who think a conspiracy was involved in the assassination this doesn't provide an explanation that hangs together.