Disappointing...but not for the reasons everyone says it is

Rating: 4/10 (14 December 2006)

Contrary to popular opinion, the problem with Oliver Stone's lengthy tale of the most controversial assassination of the 20th century isn't the fact that he says "everyone did it". Frankly, I wouldn't have cared if he implicated Canada, Orochi cultists, or space aliens...*because that's what the story of the assassination is about.* Suspicion. Uncertainty. Paranoia. The idea that it really could've been anyone, anywhere. The powerful, overwhelming belief in a conspiracy, and, just as important, why so many people *wanted* to believe. This would've been a great movie, probably one of the pivotal films of our time, if Stone did nothing more than explore this angle and give ideas...not facts, just ideas...on what the potential conspirators' motives would've been. Why would organized crime put a hit on him? Would Cuba dare perform an act of war on American soil? How could a sitting vice president possibly pull this off and not get caught?
Instead, Stone committed a cardinal sin...he let his ego get in the way. He was thoroughly convinced that there was ONE possibility and constructs the entire movie around it, effectively rendering about the first 80% of the movie meaningless. And I really didn't like how the protagonist lawyer quickly became the sole focus in a movie that all but begs for multiple voices and perspectives. The trial of Clay Bertram was such a reach that it was virtually anticlimactic (and I considered this the most interesting part of the movie), and the final verdict will come as no surprise at all.
I want a ballsy antihero, I'll watch an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. JFK should've been *about* JFK. That it wasn't was what where it came up unforgivably short.