A travesty Pure fiction from one certifiably ignorant filmmaker

Rating: 1/10 (28 February 2014)

It should be a tipoff when one learns that Stone refused to buy the screen rights to his favorite hokum conspiracy book because he thought the price too high. So he blithely bought the rights to another hokum conspiracy tome, and then disregarded everything it said. This film is based on commonly held mistaken beliefs and ridiculously inane conspiratorial delusions. My favorite instance of this nonsense is Walter Matthau's knowingly smug remark that Oswald couldn't hit the side of barn while firing a rifle in the Marine Corps. The records clearly show he was a very good shot (not that he had to be in order to hit a target at less than 100 yards with a scope!!!!) and I can personally verify that no Marine recruit ever gets out of basic training without showing a fair degree of marksmanship. The other outstanding fraud is when Costner claims that the Zapruder film shows Kennedy's head moving back at impact of the third bullet, when in fact it clearly displays a sudden, short, forward movement at impact, followed by a large backward jerk because of the sudden straightening of the JFK's body due to massive muscle contraction (which of necessity jerked his head up and back). The movie totally ignores the physical evidence and dispenses pure fraud. Everyone who deals in such matters knows that a bullet has no ability to force the human body to make drastic reactionary movements. A bullet drills a nice neat hole thru the human body but it only weighs around an ounce and cannot displace a 20 pound human head. Newton knew that 350 years ago - Stone is clueless about laws of motion and inertia. The JFK assassination is about as completely understood as any important crime can be. There simply are no mysteries about the case.
Reality is not Hollywood's strong point. Nor is accurate history, even in the best of cases. Oliver Stone has produced a piece of unmitigated historical and logical nonsense that serious students of the JFK assassination can only laugh at, make fun of, and wonder why our country has so many gullible and illogical moviegoers. Fortunately for Oliver Stone, all those slandered folks who would normally sue him for every cent he's got, are dead and buried. He knew he couldn't prove anything his movie said. Costner should be ashamed for being part of this travesty. And Matthau as well. My opinion of their ethics put them on my "Never watch" list of actors.