Review: JFK.(1991)

“Who killed the Kennedys? 

When after all, 

it was you and me!”

`Sixty years ago, shots rang out in Dallas that were heard all around the world—in many ways, a watershed moment not only for the United States, but for everyone under its considerable cultural reach. A young handsome president, who had promised a new frontier for a new decade, was seemingly taken in his prime—and from there came the turbulence that would define the rest of the sixties. The idea that the leader of a superpower could be taken out like that was shaking enough that, of course, it proved too difficult to accept for many. And, almost thirty years after that, Oliver Stone delivered an epic-length screed to share his thoughts and ‘theories’ on the matter—here’s my take on JFK. 

Many things can be said about Stone and his filmography, but I’ll always grant that both are at least interesting. 1986’s Platoon remains one of the defining movies of the war genre, and was essentially Stone pouring out his own heart regarding his experiences there. Those same experiences left him with a distrustful take on the military-industrial complex, understandably, and those cynical takes show up in other influential works that he helped write like Scarface. Later films that Stone would make included Nixon and Dubya, much more directly about noted US Presidents, and somewhat more even-handed than you might think, especially considering his background. 

1991’s JFK is much more about…well, to put it politely, essentially Stone’s take on attorney Jim Garrison’s investigation of the Warren Report that covered the shooting of John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald. Somewhat more impolitely, it’s a three and a half hour long tract essentially espousing Stone’s very obvious leaning towards the conspiracy theories that emerged from it. And how many theories there are, stemming from social pareidolia—be they about the KGB or Cuban intelligence doing it, or the mafia, or big business, or the Klan, or JFK’s own time-travelling self, or maybe the Zeta Reticulans. Stone’s choice is, fitting given his background, the military and intelligence network itself, as he immediately leans to in the opening prologue.

But before we get into that, how is it as a film? We have Kevin Costner as a (much more handsome than in reality) version of Garrison, and, well, Costner never was the most grabbing main lead, let’s face it. A lot of the supporting cast is much more interesting—be they Wayne Knight, or the ever awesome Tommy Lee Jones as our designated villain role. Joe Pesci, Vincent D’Onofrio, Kevin Bacon…the breadth of this certainly gave them film considerable pedigree on release and for some, still does. 

The film veers around from somewhat drawn-out and a little overdone conversations around dinner tables or in cafes, with all the cigarettes alit as you might expect from the sixties. The most memorable moment comes when Garrison meets with a ‘Mr. X’ (Donald Sutherland), a seemingly retired military officer who takes him on a walk around the Washington Mall, espousing on how far he sees the conspiracy to an extended polemic about the true nature of war and the way governments can wield it. That sequence is probably the one that sticks the most in pop culture, for good reason—and while there are kernels of truth in there regarding the pervasiveness of corruption and Cold War politics, unfortunately we have to start looking at the elephants in the room. 

Essentially, by his own admission, Stone had to make up a lot of ‘facts’ in the film to prove his point—be it by having figures make confessions they never did in real life, to smearing some of the opposing figures here, while also painting over a lot of Garrison’s own flaws. The film depicts Kennedy as someone who wanted to massively de-escalate Cold War buildup and then essentially pull out of Vietnam—when one looks at his words and actions in full context, it’s very evident that while he quite arguably would have had a dialled back commitment to that war compared to his successors, he would remain committed nevertheless. Like with many of his generation, Stone seems to have a messianic view of JFK—and while, like any figure, the latter came with good and bad (be it resolving nuclear crisis or frolicking with Marilyn), it all feels rather much. 

It goes on—at one point the film disproves its points on screen by claiming a rifle couldn’t fire fast enough to the shot, when it does precisely that in the scene where the test it, as you can count on your fingers. Stone apparently had to use a smoke machine to get the effect supposedly described from the infamous grassy knoll he thinks was the real source of the assassination. Oswald himself is painted as a schmuck who couldn’t tie his laces, yet in one scene they claim he apparently was capable enough to reliably feed false intelligence to the Soviets as some sort of plant. This is all stuff you can pick up just by watching, and by the drawn-out final courtroom scene where actual footage of the bullet strikes is shown in full graphic view, it already feels like it’s undermining itself. 

That leaves JFK as a film that, while it has its highlights on the technical side, feels too long, too pretentious, and too self-important for me to condone. It’s a quest for the truth that discards the truth when it gets inconvenient. And that is perhaps the real lesson to take from this, especially as our later years prove decisively that, in fact, lone unstable gunmen are perfectly capable of causing death and misery without nebulous conspiracies behind them. This leaves it feeling even more tasteless now, in an age where we can all latch onto whatever truth suits us—and most of us are guilty to some degree. 

Stone was a man who had his viewpoints and his convictions, but unfortunately in later years his convictions lead him to fall for those not actually his friend—those who have also peddled conspiracies, and happily fuelled the greed of war machines he once railed against. I suppose this also highlights the above—that while questioning and truth seeking is commendable, it should be for the actual truth, not vindicating oneself. In a world fixed on conspiracies, it becomes ever more important to be mindful of one’s own blinkers, lest you become a patsy yourself--those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future, indeed. Beyond nonsense about bullet angles or smoke machines, I let that be the message I take from this one…