A Cinema Masterpiece And Honest Search For Truth

Rating: 10/10 (30 October 2011)

JFK is a three hour film that examines the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover- up, through the eyes of the late former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison - who filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw for his alleged participation in a conspiracy to assassinate the President, for which Lee Harvey Oswald was found responsible by two Government investigations: the Warren Commission, and the House Select Committee on Assassinations that concluded that there was another assassin shooting with Oswald.
JFK was adapted by Stone and Zachary Sklar from the books On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs.It stars Kevin Costner,Gary Oldman,Kevin Bacon,Tommy Lee Jones together with Laurie Metcalf,Michael Rooker,Joe Pesci,Jay O. Sanders,Donald Sutherland,John Candy and Sissy Spacek with Martin Sheen acting as the narrator of the movie. It was directed by Oliver Stone.
The docudrama accounts the mystery behind the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.The brisk investigation of that murder conducted under the guidance of Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren distressed many observers, even though subsequent careful investigations have been unable to find much fault with the conclusions his commission drew, the central one of which was that the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted alone. Instead of satisfying the public, one result of the Warren Commission Report was that an unimaginable number of plausible conspiracy theories were bruited about, and these have supported a sizable publishing mini-industry ever since. But New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison is convinced that there are some big flaws in the investigation of Oswald, and he sets out to recreate the events leading up to the assassination. Along the way, he stumbles across evidence that a great many people had reason to want to see the president killed, and he is convinced that some of them worked in concert to frame Oswald as the killer. Among the suspects are Lyndon Baines Johnson,the next president of the United States, the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover, and the Mafia. Over the course of gathering what he believes to be evidence of a conspiracy, Garrison unveils some of the grittier aspects of New Orleans society,focusing on the shady activities of Clay Shaw.Garrison's investigations culminate in his conducting a show trial that he knows he will lose and which he is sure will ruin his career in order to get his evidence into the public record where it can't be buried again.
In making this movie, Stone presented another theory that it was the conspiracy that involves the CIA who committed the crime of the assassination of the late President John Kennedy and what came out was one of the most compelling and controversial films ever to emerge from American cinema. The final film came out like a cinema masterpiece and an honest search for truth.The performances by Kevin Costner and Tommy Lee Jones were phenomenal.Costner had a low-key but forceful portrayal of Garrison and nicely conveys the requisite grit,curiosity and fearlessness.While Jones exhibited a great complexity and emotion to the man behind Shaw.The direction was also superb as the movie was a great ride of both information and propaganda for three hours seemed quite short in this docudrama.
In the end,JFK is a must-see!!!!