4 Friday, Dec. 20, 1991 The Philadelphia Inquirer `JFK' a gripping look at a shattering moment By Desmond Ryan Inquirer Movie Critic -MOVIE REVIEW In Platoon and Born on the Fourth JFK **** of July, reopened the Produced by Alex Kitman; directed by still festering wounds of the Vietnam Oliver Stone; written by Oliver Stone and war. With JFK, he takes up the terri- Zachary Sklar; photography by Robert ble day that changed history and our Richardson; music by : dis- lives and, in a movie that fuses mol- tributed by Warner Bros. ten rage with cool argument, pre- Running time: 3 holes, 10 mins. sents the death of a president as a Jim Garrison Kevin Costner Liz Garrison ...... Sissy Spacek cancer that has metastasized Lee Harvey Oswald__ ...... Gary adman through the body politic. Clay Shaw . Call JFK — which may not be quite David Ferris the best movie released this year but Parent's guide: R (violence, profanity, is certainly the most important - adult themes) paranoid, polemical and distorted. Showing et: area theaters True believers in the bitterly disput- ed conclusions of the Warren Com- mission report may use those words truth is the first casualty of assassi- if they are feeling polite. But the nation reports as well as war — that truth is — and JFK is entirely and Stone is asking you to leave your relentlessly devoted to the idea that (Continued on Page 41) Continued from Page 4 normal movie-going assumptions murky reality. The evidence of what and responses in the lobby. happened in Dealey Plaza and who Superficially, JFK is a turbo- was responsible is as vast as it is charged piece of propaganda that, contested by a dizzying selection of for more than three mesmerizing theories. Further, suspicions of a hours, dramatizes the claims of, hasty whitewash were only com- among others, former New Orleans pounded by the incredible sloppi- District Attorney Jim Garrison that ness (or was it deliberate mishan- President Kennedy's murder can be dling?) of the investigation in the laid to a massive, far-flung conspir- chaotic days after the murder. acy. But at its core, JFK is a scenario To assemble it into a taut, coherent that forces us to reconsider the seis- narrative — and this from a film- mic political and moral repercus- maker often charged with incoher- sions that still reverberate almost ence — is a stunning achievement. three decades after the shots rang In the last analysis, it doesn't matter out in Dealey Plaza on Nov. 22, 1963. whether you go along with all or part For Stone, the aspirations of minor- ities and the hope of avoiding a trag- ically wrong war died with President Kennedy on that day. If Watergate destroyed our trust in once-revered institutions, the murder of John F. Kennedy dealt a crippling blow to our faith in the future. The boldest stroke in JFK is to entwine these two sentiments. JFK pivots on the notion of a dual conspiracy. It follows Garrison's ob- sessive pursuit of those he deemed participants — from the demimonde of New Orleans' gay underworld to the corridors of power in Washing- ton. It depicts the actual plot to gun down the President as a mere pre-. lude to the conspiracy to dupe the American people into accepting that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. During several exchanges in the film, Stone willingly raises what many viewers will see as a key flaw in. his contention. A conspiracy of the dimensions darkly outlined by JFK — one that spreads from the Mafia and right-wing Cubans to the upper reaches of the CIA, the FBI and the Dallas Police — is one thing. The idea that, in all the years that fol- lowed, everyone who had a hand in it would never divulge the slightest hint is a real test of our credulity. Further, the structure of JFK may allow Stone a powerful platform, but it also involves putting President Kennedy and — more dubiously, Garrison — on pedestals. Stone's is Kevin Costner as New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison. an unsullied vision of Camelot, and his insistence that Kennedy would of Stone's persuasive version of ventilating as co-conspirator David not have continued our tragic blun- events. He lays bare the myriad dis- Ferrie. dering in Vietnam is, to put it mildly, crepancies in the official story and, Collectively, the and some very debatable. And, with Kevin while you can dispute his vision of concise writing by Stone and co-sce- Costner investing Garrison with a the truth, subsequent history has narist Zachary Sklar help prevent charismatic decency, the district at- made it hard to argue with his con- JFK from collapsing under the sheer torney becomes a figure of crusading clusions about the consequences. weight of the facts that have been purity that his critics will not recog- The casting of JFK is inspired, marshaled. nize. with a pleasing blend of relatively A Gallup Poll taken last summer But, as JFK unfolds with a preci- obscure actors and stars like Jack found that nearly three-quarters of sion and discipline that are new to Lemmon and Walter Matthau enjoy- Americans do not believe the War- Stone's already protean talents, this ing their cameos. They all share an ren Commission's one-man, one-gun black-and-white twin canonization ability to make an impact in a small theory. Stone's monumental and allows us to ponder the gray and space — none more than Tommy Lee deeply compelling film should put Jones as Clay Shaw, the target of the the remaining 25 percent in the Garrison probe, and Joe Pesci, hyper- camp of the skeptics.