Jim Garrison is the District Attorney in New Orleans and he discovers more to the Kennedy assassination than the official story that had been released, something he was not willing to let go he worked for years to put together a case.
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A powerful film with truly incredible performances and an interesting theory or conspiracy theory around the assassination of JFK. Now I have to admit that my knowledge on the subject is not really very big and I have only seen films surrounding it more recently Jackie. That is something that I had to take into consideration when watching this film, knowing that it is not all true and based on that theory. That being said though Oliver Stone really put together a very engaging and incredible film, with an epic running time of 3 hours and 26 minutes in length. At times it really did feel like it was that long but then with the cast and different scenes it then flew through.
The plot is very complex as Garrison noticed links to New Orleans to the assassination with private pilot David Ferrie possibly being involved. The issue is that the federal government put a stop to this in 1963. Three years later in 1966 he decides to reopen the case after reading the Warren Report and realises that it contains many inaccuracies. They must get very deep into the different possibilities and attempt to figure out who exactly is lying and who is telling the truth. Considering the biggest suspect Lee Harvey Oswald was killed it seems as though that was the perfect cover for him to no longer be able to face a trial for the crime.
The film really highlights how Garrison really put his whole life on the line as such and not just security wise but that of his family life. Arguments with his wife Liz as he failed to notice the children enough anymore, he was consumed by the whole case. I felt that this was a very important aspect to show in order to understand his passion for wanting to find out the truth that he had to sacrifice everything in an attempt to do that.
Kevin Costner is truly outstanding in the film and the closing speech he gives in the courtroom is really one of the best in that style. The passion and emotion shown is truly fantastic acting, not forgetting how much he leads the full film. Other than that though I actually had no idea who was in the cast and what an amazing cast it is! I think my favourite surprise was John Candy, who did not really do that many serious films like this one and that is something he struggled with himself it seems. Then we have Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pesci, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, Donald Sutherland and Kevin Bacon. Sissy Spacek was impressive and shared some good scenes with Costner and that was interesting to watch. Jay O. Sanders was one of the stand outs in the supporting roles.
Overall it is certainly a very finely acted film with incredible performances that really push it to another level, keeping it fully engaging for the running time was not an easy task. I did struggle a few times but as I mentioned it is not a subject area that I know very much about.