JFK

Oliver Stone is a director who you might say has fallen from grace in recent years. There was a time when his films would be featured among the frontrunners at the Oscars but following the forgettable Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, disappointing Savages and the decent yet not quite great Snowden in the last decade, he hasn't been quite at the top of his game for some time. However, his status in 1991 was very different and more so when he released JFK, a film that brought the conspiracies over the assassination John F. Kennedy to the mainstream.

Kevin Costner stars as New Orleans DA, Jim Garrison, who discovers there's more to JFK's assassination than what the official statements let on and that the reported killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, (played by a young Gary Oldman) might in fact be innocent. The controversial theories Stone explores gave the film a huge PR boost and it even prompted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 to try and clear the air over the conspiracies. Many of the records were revealed in 2017, all be it with a number of redactions, even though the official date for them to become public is in 2029.

Does this mean Stone's JFK is a historically inaccurate slice of entertainment dressed as fact? Well we may never truly know and while some characters, such as Donald Sutherland's, are purely fictional, Stone clearly did his research in delivering an engaging drama that uses factual points to use as a starting stone. So in other words, I had to remind myself while watching not to take everything as gospel. Disappointing? Yes. Is it still good? Oh yes! 

Running at just over three eye watering hours, JFK is an intense, absorbing drama that flies by in thanks to Stone's brilliant direction and talented cast. In the wrong hands, three hours of sitting conversations could spell disaster for the film but Stone keeps the pacing tight (with the film two Oscars, including Best Editing) and the story moves along swiftly. Meanwhile, Costner is just great as the pipe smoking southern DA. It's not an easy role to handle when surrounded by an exuberant supporting cast and he could easily become the almost faceless reporter Jerry from Citizen Kane but manages to hold his own against the likes of an Oscar nominated Tommy Lee Jones, John Candy, Kevin Bacon, Sutherland and Joe Pesci who are all brilliant.

What's more, the film is even accessible if you know very little about the assassination and it had me interested in learning more about what was factual afterwards. This was clearly a passion project for Stone who rates this as the favourite of his films, and he even has a documentary, JFK: Destiny Betrayed, currently in post-production to expand on the information revealed since making JFK.

Even if you watch this in two sittings because of the running time, JFK is still a very easy recommendation. Sometimes a film can feel frustrating if half of it was a wild myth but thankfully that's far from the case here. Sure, Stone takes certain leaps and bounds to get his points across but never sacrifices the experience here on offer that is very engaging from start to finish. I hope we get to see the director back on this level again one day, and look forward to seeing his documentary.