JFK

It's all the more fascinating to watch this again in 2021, almost sixty years on, when the office of the US Presidency is still mired in conspiracy and controversy. This film deals with Louisiana District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) and his almost obsessive quest to prove that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963 was a concerted effort by rogue elements in the American establishment - government, military and industry - to avert his withdrawal from Vietnam and ensure billions of dollars continued to line the pockets of many a vested interest. Oliver Stone has amassed a creditable cast to illustrate the developing theorem postulated by Garrison - despite personal and professional threats - that proves both compelling and interesting to watch. My snag is that the hook on which much of this drama is based - the characterisation of Garrison - is really poor. Costner just doesn't deliver. He is weak and uninspiring; his impassioned search for truth and justice is set up well by the strong supporting efforts, but his on-screen persona just lacks the zeal and intensity needed to sustain the intensity of this investigation. Plaudits ought to go to an excellently enigmatic Donald Sutherland as his latter day deep throat "X"; and to Tommy Lee Jones as the seriously seedy "Shaw". Kevin Bacon also performs well as the aptly named, glorified rent boy "Willie". Maybe it is the presence of such acting luminaries - Matthau, Lemmon and Sissy Spacek (Garrison's wife) that serve to further compound the inadequacies of the lead? A failure that is finally embodied by the missed opportunity to present his rousing denouement to an open court that is quickly reduced to something akin to a third grade chemistry lecture with little inflection or potency. It's long, at times feeling unnecessarily weighty. Perhaps, had the director not gone for a box office pappiness to head this otherwise gripping docu-dramna, then it could have been a great movie. As it is, it's good but lacking. Congress ordered an evaluation of the documents supporting/contesting these assertions in 1992 - the absence, meantime, of any further developments will ensure this film stays pertinent, however flawed, for many years to come...