MovieChat Forums > JFK (1991) Discussion > Has "JFK" aged well?

Has "JFK" aged well?


I say Yes and No

Yes because:
It's still a beautifully shot film with great acting performances and quotable dialog. It's among the best political Thrillers I've ever seen. It dramatizes America's paranoia and growing distrust in their government in a way that few other films have.

No because:
First, it plays too fast and loose with some of the evidence in the cases against characters like Clay Shaw and David Ferrie. While there's evidence that Shaw lied about working for the CIA and pretty strong circumstantial evidence that Ferrie knew of Oswald even if they weren't associates in 1963, there's little evidence connecting either man to the events in Dallas around the time JFK was killed. Many of the fringe theories raised in the film like Umbrella Man and the Three Tramps have easily been refuted.

Secondly, Jim Garrison was not a hero in real life. Many of the accusations about him coaching or drugging witnesses are true. Garrison's trial against Shaw was a side show and he ignored real potential suspects like Carlos Marcello.

I still find this movie enjoyable from an entertainment standpoint but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is looking to learn about the Kennedy Assassination. I'd rather recommend books, both anti-conspiracy and pro-conspiracy, to people interested in learning more about the JFK assassination



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It's still extremely entertaining and sort of encapsulates the gist from the JFK conspiracy nutters.

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From a technical standpoint the film has aged beautifully, the direction, acting and writing are brilliant.

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I watched it last night and I liked it.

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Even if everything in JFK is bullshit, I don't really care because it's so remarkably well-made. Stone used every cinema trick he learned at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. The performances from many of its supporting players are top-notch: Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci, Kevin Bacon, Ed Asner, Jack Lemmon, John Candy, Laurie Metcalf, Donald Sutherland, Gary Oldman, etc. did incredible work. I respectfully leave out Sissy Spacek because she and Garrison's children were given such terrible lines to say. ("Daddy never keeps his promises.") As for Costner--he's likable in the role but one comes away from the film baffled that any courtroom in America would have allowed him to carry on like that. I view JFK now as a well-made political thriller no diffrrent than Manchurian Candidate (the '62 version).

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It's neither more or less relevant now than it was when it was made.

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