Crime Of The Century

Rating: 9/10 (9 July 2001)

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963 probably ranks as the darkest day in American 20th century history. What makes it particularly sad is that nowhere near all the details about his murder have ever been released to the public.
Before Oliver Stone ever came out with "JFK" the movie, few people believed the Warren Commission's claim that Lee Harvey Oswald acted killed Kennedy on his own volition. There was also a good case to be made that Oswald was nothing more than a patsy in a very devious conspiracy, and that he didn't even do it. Note that all of this was BEFORE the release of "JFK." The firestorm of controversy the film created only served to add to the debate.
Stone's epic, 205-minute movie, which details the efforts of New Orleans DA Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) to unravel at least a part of the conspiracy by trying to tie in local business magnate Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones) to it, levels some pretty heavy judgments against those who would cling to the Oswald-did-it-alone-theory. Not all of the theories that Stone espouses here are believable, but a number of scenarios are raised that could very easily have happened in reality. Was JFK's murder possibly even an elaborate coup d'etat, a theory raised by Mr. X (Donald Sutherland)? Was Kennedy actually trying to end the Cold War while in office, putting the military/industrial complex in fear for its very existence? Would he have halted America's involvement in Vietnam?
All the questions and theories get a thorough going-over. Nobody's going to mistake "JFK" for a documentary, to be sure. And certainly there will always be apologists for the Warren Commission, like Gerald Posner, even as its theories have credibility holes big enough to drive a truck through. But in the end, "JFK" is riveting filmmaking pure and simple, well worthy of the Oscars it got for cinematography and editing. And get a load of the people Stone put into his film: Jack Lemmon, John Candy, Sissy Spacek, Sally Kirkland, Walter Matthau, Kevin Bacon, Ed Asner.
With all of this, Stone, like Stanley Kubrick, made a film that started people talking...and one that they're STILL talking about after ten years. RATING: 8/10.