peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2012 10 18 JFK

JFK

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Oliver Stone's sprawling summary of the state of JFK assassination conspiracy theories circa 1992. I saw this in several chunks over many days. Kevin Costner plays a crusading Southern DA who tries to dig into what looks like an immense cover-up. Joe Pesci maintains his average by spraying invective throughout his brief time on screen. (The toupee offends me.)

Given what Stone shows here it is difficult not to conclude that people high up in the U.S. Federal Government were complicit in the failure to effectively investigate. Stone manages to have things all ways by lampooning some of the loonier conspiracy theories / investigation assertions while slow cooking his favoured narrative in his characteristic chopped-up documentary style. He clearly deifies the Kennedy brothers, which makes me wonder if he really believes that JFK was going to get them out of (not get them into) the Vietnam war. The bureaucratic push-back arising from JFK's post-Bay of Pigs neutering of the C.I.A. is well-canvassed.