JFK

1991 | Oliver Stone | Kevin Costner | Michael Rooker | Gary Oldman | Sissy Spacek | Joe Pesci | Kevin Bacon | Donald Sutherland | Vincent D'Onofrio | Martin Sheen Rewatched “JFK” in the 206 minutes long director’s cut and let me tell you how glad I am that I did. I firmly believe that this is one of the greatest american films ever for multiple reasons. But first of all, I don’t believe everything the film says. There are so many parts of the JFK assassination conspiracy that have been thoroughly debunked, like the picture of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the gun not being fake but real, and so many other things that are more or less incidental. But the JFK conspiracy is pretty much the only conspiracy theory that I believe holds some validity as it’s neither just plain bonkers and stupid, like the flat-earth or ancient aliens garbage, nor flat-out offensive, violently dangerous or antisemitic like so many others are. This one’s just like ‘hey, maybe that guy didn’t do it alone and maybe the US government was involved like it was in so many other crimes’. It doesn’t hurt anybody and doesn’t offend science and logic. And both the ‘Zapruder film’ and the ‘magic bullet’ theory are incredibly compelling. So now Oliver Stone comes along and delivers one of the most gripping and equally compelling legal/investigative dramas of all time very much in the vein of 60s and 70s paranoia thrillers. For over three hours he puts you under his spell and keeps building tension and intrigue like he’s never done anything else in his whole life. With his attention to detail and a storm of information and clues, he draws you deep into this investigation and gets ahold of every bit of attention you could possibly have and he never let’s you go. The 16 minutes Donald Sutherland monologue is a highlight that exists beyond comparison. It’s a guy talking for 16 minutes and you just suck up every word of his. A guy talking for 16 minutes and it’s so incredibly tense. Just like the courtroom part at the end that brings the tension to a whole other level. The ‘Back, and to the left’ moments is so tense it’s unbelievable. And the film looks absolutely incredible too. Undoubtedly one of the best looking and best edited film of its decade at least. Not to mention the performances that are fantastic all across the board. “JFK” is Stone’s masterpiece and definitely one of my favorite films of all time. Not everything it claims to be true is true, but some of it might be and either way it’s incredibly well executed and super effective.