An Engaging and Eye Opening Political Thriller

Rating: 10/10 (11 December 2016)

The assassination of American President John Kennedy is one of the most talked about events in American history so making a film about such a talked over event was going to be no easy task but Oliver Stone pulled it of perfectly and may just be the best film he's ever given us next to Platoon. This film has an extremely long runtime and there's nothing wrong with that as long as they use it to the films advantage and they do, the first 30 minutes of this film takes the time to explore the effects of the assassination, the reasons why it effected To so many people and sets up the main character and his motivations played perfectly by Kevin Costner. I truly think that this is the greatest performance Kevin Costner has ever given because he perfectly strikes a balance between his obsession with solving the assassination and his commitments to his family, the character is just so well written, you understood why he was so obsessed and was an easy person to get behind. Tommy Lee Jones gives a performance like we've never seen from him before, he was fantastic in this film, he was such a despicable character and was the perfect foil for the plot of this film. A very young Gary Oldman was also great in this film as Lee Harvey Oswald, he leaves a really big impression for the rest of the film to follow and when we start to learn more about Oswalds character, Oldmans performance remains consistent. This film could have been extremely boring because of the amount of information that it has to give out but it never is. The film takes entire sequences to add emotional weight to the assassination and the masterful editing in this film allowed us to take in the information better. I really liked the fact that Stone didn't paint the assassination as just an act of pure evil, we begin to understand why JFK was killed and while you never support them, you understand why the assassins chose to kill him and made the film much more interesting. Another thing I loved about this movie was the sub plot of Garrisons family, it added to Costners character as we begin to see that his obsession with this case is becoming unhealthy, yet through conversations with his children we begin to further understand his motives and was really heartwarming at times.
JFK is a masterpiece, it's engaging, never boring and extremely intriguing. While I'm not entirely sure if this film is completely accurate, it's probably somewhat close to the truth. It has fantastic performances, particularly that of Kevin Costner and may just be Stones best film.
100%/A+