Review of JFK (1991) by Eric H — 06 Mar 2017

I think that it would be pretty awesome to have Oliver Stone as a history teacher for the three days he would have with the job before they fired him. Heck, I don't even know if he would make it three "periods" into his "first" day, and it wouldn't simply be his crazy, controversal views on politics and history that would land the nail in his teaching career coffin, it would be him being caught with whatever kind of insane drugs that he takes for an early morning snack, which I guess would go hand-in-hand with his dubious history lessons, because you would have to be on drugs to think up history this crazy. No, his history isn't even mildly that farfetched; in fact, it's riveting, especially now-a-days, when you can look back and have your mind blown by the fascinating fact that in his youth, Gary Oldman looked an awful lot like Sam Rockwell. Seriously, someone has got to make a movie with Christoph Waltz as Ryan Gosling's dad and Gary Oldman as Sam Rockwell's. Granted, Gary Oldman would have had to have been 10 when he had little baby Rockwell, but hey, he was probably one smooth toddler, so who's to say he didn't attract his teacher's attention? Wow, that statement was so creepy, trippy and deeply offensive that Oliver Stone's probably going to make a movie out of it at some point, because you know that it's pretty much that guy's job to make people mad. Clearly, he's not doing his job well, because everyone's digging on this film, and while I'm not particularly animalistic about it, I'm enjoying myself too. However, it should go without saying - partially because I do the segway to death - that there aren't still bumps in that enjoyment.

The film's ability to go so long at a steady pace with dialogue and rarely fall into dullness is impressive, though not surprising, considering that this is Olver Stone and that he is very well known for his ability to pump plenty of intrigue and style into his work. However, there are points in this film where the stylizing gets a touch overwhelming and rather gratuitous, certainly not to the extent of "Natural Born Killers" - where he just killed the filter and let lord knows what dump out -, but you will still find yourself saying, "Okay, maybe that was a little much" at points. Still, overstylizing is the least of the film's problem, because even though this film is able to dance outside of dullness, when you're looking at over 3 hours - or almost three-and-a-half hours in the case of the director's cut - consisting almost entirely of dialogue and investigation, things are gonna start losing steam, if not look a little too familiar. The film gets pretty darn repetitive pretty darn fast, and sure, the film breaks out of the loop quite often, but those moments are still gotten to eventually, with the preceding time being occupied with exposition, followed by exposition, then exposition and yet more exposition, and after a while intrigue's going to dip a bit. Many will walk into this film expecting fact-after-after-fact-after-fact, but it's hard to be prepared for just how unrelenting this film is in its barrage of exposition and discussion, something that is never - not even for a second - tedious, but with this film running such a mammoth length, disengagement is to be expected. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to tell you that those expectations go unfulfilled and that this film is never disengaging. Intrigue dilutes a little bit after a while, but never fades, keeping at a constant flow that makes the film consistently fascinating and, well, rather entertaining, and has to thank the top-notch filmmaking team behind it for that.

Robert Richardson is one of the greatest cinematographers alive and few people aim to prove it more than Richardson's long-time collaborater, Mr. Oliver Stone, who makes many demands for lively, lush and versatile shots with lighting that can switch from bright to bleak in the blink of an eye and not feel offputting, and sure enough, you get that here and it all comes out brilliantly thanks to Richardson's masterful eye for photography. Of course, providing Richardson with great material for photography isn't the only thing that Oliver Stone does to keep the film engaging, because Mr. Stone is really bringing both in the directing seat and on paper. Oliver Stone's and Zachary Sklar's script stands to be tighter and more dynamic, but is still pretty sharp, keeping the long sequences of exposition going with not only snappy dialogue, but an endless barrage of consistently riveting and deeply fascinating facts married with probable fiction. Now, I and countless other think - nay - know that the made-up theories behind this film are quite frankly bogus, and the film seems to think that too, as it lacks the pretense of trying to really force its crackpot theories on you, but is still assigned the mission of providing complex and compelling possibilities that organically intertwine with incontrovertible facts, and it's a mission that is accomplished gracefully with the help of Oliver Stone, as well as his star-studded cast of true acting talents. With intrigue in each person's presence and emotion backing up their tension, every last member of this big name cast sells that they are all components of complexity, as well as humans, with each person - whether they be primaries, secondaries, tertiaries or even cameos - establishing the feeling of depth and tension as everything unfolds in both the case and them as humans. I for one couldn't be more impressed with Kevin Costner, who's always been a hit-or-miss actor, but one to really deliver when he hits, and boy is this a hit, because outside of charm and a great southern accent (Certainly better than his English accent), Costner is providing a sublte, yet powerful force of obsession and some degree of fear as Jim Garrison cuts deeper and deeper into the horrors of conspiracy and makes many shocking discoveries that could not only affect the nation, but his own life, and Costner's ability to convey all of that with such grace is all too refreshing. Now, in all honesty, the film is not as good as I'm making it sound, but there is still plenty of top-notch stuff pumped into this film, and maybe there's not enough of that top-notch stuff to make the film itself, as a whole, top-notch, but there's still plenty that's genuinely riveting about this film.

When it's all said and, well, said - seeing as nothing's getting done other than talking -, the film is really pulled down and diluted by its countless loose, repetative sequences that lose steam after a while, yet never to the point where the film is left completely devoid of intrigue, because although the film stands to be tighter, it boasts dazzling visuals to engage your eyes and snappy, complex writing to engage your mind as fact and fiction find themselves seamlessly fused - with the help of Oliver Stone and his razor-sharp cast - to make "JFK" a consistently enjoyable and thoroughly fascinating study on the truths and theories behind one of America's greatest tragedies and the dark depths surrounding it.

3/5 - Good.