JFK
Dir Oliver Stone
Written by Oliver Stone, Zachary Sklar
Kevin Costner, Kevin Bacon, John Candy, Tommy Lee Jones, Wayne Knight, Laurie Metcalf, Gary Oldman, Joe Pesci, Michael Rooker, Jay O Sanders, Sissy Spacek, Donald Sutherland, Ed Asner, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Pruitt Taylor Vince.
In the years following the assassination of President John F Kennedy, New Orleans DA Jim Garrison (Costner) begins an investigation into the possibitlty of a conspiracy of the assassinaton, and that the perpetrator Lee Harvey Oswald (Oldman) did not act alone.
Behemoth film, in not only casting (with dozens of then large names, or soon to be large names) with a run time of 190m – which covers the events that occurred in the days before, the day of and the years after the assassination of JFK.
The direction from Stone is exceptional. The level of detail he was able to go into, with both the flash backs of the event – to the moments in which the characters timeline occurred. It really felt as if the characters were living in mid 60’s with the settings too. The flashbacks, which were done in Stone’s trademark ‘worn film, and erratic camera movements’ only strengthened his film.
The cast all all exceptional, with many more cast not even listed above making small roles memorable too. Many of the cast were primarily known for their comedic prowless (like Candy, Lemmon, Matthau), and each nail their performances as the real life people they play. The characters are mostly based on real life people (with a few being made for cinema).
The screenplay is one of the best I’ve reviewed so far, with two very powerful monologues that were captivating with the level of information given (by Sutherlands Mr X) and for their emotional charge (Garrison’s end of film courtroom filibuster) that was so powerful that Costner himself was in tears because of it. This was truly deserving of the Oscar nomination.
The score by legendary John Williams was brilliant, with many moments throughout that will give you goose-bumps, especially when the trial begins.
An easy top mark, and well worth watching.
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