Review of Parkland (2013) by Bruce B — 07 Jan 2014

I left feeling unsure about what the goal of this movie was. I've seen better documentaries on TV which went much more in depth with the material. Yet being a factual reenactment, they couldn't exactly give much in the way of twists either; the viewer already knows what's going to happen. So it's either a kind of shallow documentary or the world's most predictable drama.

As other reviewers have noted, the film tries to follow several different individuals and does a pretty poor job developing any of them to a meaningful extent. It starts pretty much out of the gate with the big event, so we don't learn anyone's background, nor does it follow them more than a few days beyond the tragedy. So again, all extremely predictable to anyone who has read a book or watched a decent documentary on the topic. 2 Stars. 12-10-13.