Inspired by true events

Rating: 8/10 (25 February 2006)

Some movies make the statement they are based on true events. Others claim the title to be inspired by true events. Stone attempts to do the former, but ends up doing the latter.
This is a good movie. An idealistic man tried to unravel the conspiracy of the assassination of a president, and ends up being thwarted by the conspirators at every step as they cover up their tracks. Stone is a very good director and this movie is no exception. The historical accuracy of this film has been debated by very knowledgeable and passionate people, and I've read enough to find its credibility lacking, so I am judging this movie as a work of historical fiction - inspired by true events.
The death of JFK was taken as a shattering of the myth of Camelot, the end of the 20 years after WW2 when America reigned supreme and basked under the sun of its military and economic might. Stone plays upon this sentiment very well, presenting us with a series of "what if's" focusing on what would happen if JFK had lives. An idyllic utopia in which there was no Vietnam, where civil rights miraculously spread across the land, and several other unrealistic, but very appealing notions. As a Vietnam veteran, one can understand Stone's passion in making this movie. Its rather obvious that he associates the death of JFK with the start of events that led him to a series of unpleasant events in his life. Just as one mourns the death of a child because of the potential and hopes of the future, so we mourn the death of JFK based on notions of what could have been. Whether or not JFK could have accomplished these things is another matter, but we can hold this belief inside that had he lived things would have been better.
Stone plays for his audience and his time very well. The Cold War had just ended, and we no longer needed the same government that kept the Evil Empire at bay. Documents became declassified, and there was an overall backlash against the shadowy government - X-files, alien autopsy reports, etc. It was not difficult for Stone to feed upon this climate of distrust of the government in presenting his conclusions in a very appealing manner. There is no proof because the conspirators destroyed the truth. For a public just finding out a lot of the things that its government did during the Cold War that was subsequently kept quiet, the killing and cover-up of a president seemed very realistic.
As a piece of storytelling, this movie is great. It sucks you in and keeps going at a mounting pace until its eventual climax where all is revealed, and nothing is proved. As a piece of political propaganda its a masterpiece, and should be studied by every filmmaker and politician as how to take disjointed facts and coincidences and twist them together to paint a compelling story that the public would love to swallow up.
Did these events happen as shown on the screen? Its possible. Stone himself admits he took dramatic license in several events, which, if you are trying to show a factual and historical story pretty much kills your credibility from the beginning. More and more time has passed for any one of this apparent legion of conspirators to come forth and make a deathbed confession, and so the veil of conspiracy and cover-up wears thinner and thinner with each passing day. Surely Cancer Man must be getting tired eliminating witness after witness, document after document.
Watch the movie, think about it. There is plenty more to learn about what happened outside the movie, the JFK movie board itself, and the links provided in and of themselves will provide you with more information that you can imagine. But in the end, this is just a movie - inspired by true events.