838. JFK (1991)

Running Time: 189 minutes
Directed By: Oliver Stone
Written By: Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar, from the book Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs and On the Trail of the Assassins by Jim Garrison
Main Cast: Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman, Joe Pesci, Michael Rooker
Click here to view the trailer

STONE WEEK: 3 of 4

After manually manipulating a '10' rating with the watching of "Fargo", I return to the "Stone Week" festivities and follow Oliver into a new decade and his 1991 film "JFK".

To outline the entire plot of "JFK" would take entirely too long, as the film clocks in at a whopping three hours and change and covers a lot of ground as it plays out. For the unaware, the film is not a biopic about the life of the 35th President of the United States, but rather a probing into the events surrounding the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on that fateful November day in 1963 (forty-nine years ago this month).  The film's central character is New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Costner), a man who was somewhat traumatized by the events that occurred on November 22, 1963 and made it his personal mission to uncover the truth about whether or not Lee Harvey Oswald (Oldman) acted alone in assassinating JFK. Garrison disagrees with the shoddy questioning and tactics implemented in the Warren Commission, a commission organized to investigate the assassination and who concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby both acted alone in committing their crimes. The film uses lots of fast, genius editing techniques to really make the viewers head spin and throws out a lot of information over the course of it's three hour running time. The film also stars and features dozens of Hollywood A-listers, including Joe Pesci, Vincent D'Onofrio, Michael Rooker, Wayne Knight, John Candy, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Ed Asner, Sissy Spacek, Kevin Bacon, Donald Sutherland, Tommy Lee Jones, Laurie Metcalf, John Larroquette and Martin Sheen as the narrator. Okay, so maybe I'm using the term "A-lister" loosely, but my point is that there's a lot of recognizable faces in it.

It's kind of ironic that I'm writing about "JFK" one day before millions of people will head to their voting stations and choose between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. This film really made me aware of my country and my government and made me question the ethical background of, not only the politicians of yesterday, but also the politicians of today. It's not that prior to watching "JFK" I had a truckload of faith in the United States government, but this film really makes you wonder, question and feel skepticism. To think that the John F. Kennedy assassination could have been orchestrated by people as far up as Lyndon B. Johnson is mind boggling. This film made me wonder what it must've been like to be standing on Elm Street on November 22, 1963, surrounded by chaos and having all the truths right in front of you, but not knowing what to look for. The truth about who killed John F. Kennedy was in broad daylight, in Dallas, on that November day and thousands of people who arrived to watch the President's motorcade were there, but NO ONE was able to give a definitive eyewitness report. People claimed to have seen smoke, coming from behind a fence, on a grassy area, but no one was able to conclusively say whether or not Oswald did or didn't commit the crime, nor were the able to finger a second gunmen.

Prior to even watching "JFK" and despite not being born until 1984, I was always of the opinion that Oswald didn't act alone and I'd even go one step further and say that it's very possible Oswald wasn't even one of the shooters. Maybe that's my dramatic instinct kicking in though, my need to have situations be more exciting. I think that's actually where the success of "JFK" comes from. People want to believe that there's a hidden truth, a super secret being shielded from the public, something we're not allowed to know about. People love to speculate, theorize and draw conspiracy theories and perhaps not knowing is half the fun of "JFK". If you walk away from this movie and you're still of the opinion that "no, Oswald and Ruby both acted alone - one was a nutcase who wanted to kill the President and one was a patriot who wanted to avenge the death of his fallen leader", then you're not playing along with the plot of the film and obviously you're a close-minded person. Being open-minded is so much more fun, because it allows you to take all points of view and make your own theories and assumptions.

If nothing else, this film obviously made me think. It made me want to learn more about the JFK administration, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis and probe further into the events surrounding the assassination. While watching this movie I wished desperately that I would've been more educated when it came to those subjects so that I would've had some frame of reference when I was getting information fired at me at rapid speed and trying my best to take it, process it and understand it. I had a little bit of a hard time keeping up with all of those facts, figures, testimonies, theories and ideas and several times throughout the film, I had to rewind the movie to reassess what I'd just heard. The film is a political thriller and we all know how I feel about mixing movies and politics, but this one gets my seal of approval. I didn't love it to death or anything, but I applaud Stone for making me want to take an interest in my country's history (no matter how shady it may be) and for making me think and be baffled by his theories. Oh and as much as I dislike Kevin Costner, I have to give the guy credit here. He managed to do a great job giving a very LONG speech at the end of the film. However, best performance of the film honors go to Tommy Lee Jones who, no joke, stood on a film set surrounded by those dozens of stars I mentioned above and easily was the best one there.

RATING: 7/10  Only one Oliver Stone picture left and I plan to give it a look later tonight - "Natural Born Killers".

MOVIES WATCHED: 572
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 429

November 5, 2012  10:33pm