Movie Through the Looking Glass Ny Times Review
Reviews
JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Drinking glass
Oliver Stone has not left the bump-off of John F. Kennedy behind. One of his best films, 1991's "JFK" became a major event in the assay of the death of one of the most pop earth leaders in history, adding fuel to the fires already burning around The Warren Commission Report that, frankly, a lot of people don't believe. Iii decades subsequently that narrative characteristic that'southward as much about obsession every bit it is assassination, Stone has returned with a documentary that basically reiterates many of the details of the case with a heavy focus on what's been learned via declassified reports, books by witnesses, and other analysis in the final 30 years.
Playing in theaters today and on Starting time'due south streaming app, and ambulation on Showtime on the ceremony of the assassination on Nov 22rd, "JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass" is an exhaustive and sometimes exhausting documentary, a flick that can sometimes feel like it's so packed with information and detail that Stone has lost the path through this dense wood of conspiracy theories. At its best, it reminds one how tightly Stone can get together a pic similar this one every bit he makes a disarming case that some things well-nigh the bump-off of JFK don't add together upwardly. At its worst, it can be like a drunken conversation, moving wildly from bespeak to point in a fashion that gives yous no fourth dimension to stop and ask some pertinent questions. 1 thing is true in both cases—it's never boring. And our truthful criminal offence-obsessed era seems primed to revisit one of the most famous crimes of all time.
Rock was smart to basically divide "JFK Revisited" into two hour-long chapters—information technology leads i to wonder if he wasn't because making this into a docuseries instead of a film. The offset half, narrated by Stone and Whoopi Goldberg, focuses heavily on the evidence of that solar day in 1963—ballistics, exit wounds, reports from people who saw Kennedy's body. Was the bullet entry wound in the dorsum, equally the Warren Committee asserted, or in the front, as several witnesses claimed afterwards seeing the body? Why are the memories of the land of Kennedy'southward brain different than the photographs? And how does one possibly explain the retrieved bullet that reportedly went through Kennedy and hit John Connally looking practically pristine when it was recovered? Stone's arroyo is to layer inconsistency on inconsistency. Some don't add up to much—a witness is not going to be able to recall exactly how long information technology took her to descend the book depository stairs on a good twenty-four hours much less a historic ane—but there is an unsettling sense that, at the very least, mistakes were made in the investigation. (Just the chain of custody of some of the show was clearly messed upward.)
The second half of "JFK Revisited," narrated by Donald Sutherland (who had a pivotal part in "JFK"), isn't as strong because it feels more than rushed and leans into some of the wilder ideas with less focus. In this half, Stone sets out to provide motives for an assassination and cover-upward, basically pointing the finger at the CIA. He flies downward the rabbit hole of history, compiling stories about Castro, Vietnam, and the Armed services-Industrial Circuitous in a manner that sometimes feels haphazard, and so he ends far too abruptly, suggesting that conspiracy and assassination destroys the fabric of society without actually digging into what that ways in 2021.
Rock tin can go a footling too confident for his own good—"Conspiracy theories are now conspiracy facts," he says in one such moment—simply when one has devoted as much of his life to the decease of Kennedy as the Oscar-winning managing director has then hesitancy isn't an option. I was concerned going into the film that Stone's obsession would lead to a documentary that only he could sympathise—conspiracy theorists accept a addiction of foregoing accessibility to those who haven't read dozens of books on the field of study—just I was reminded how expertly Stone tin can orchestrate a film like this one, even as the 2d one-half was spinning theory after theory. Well-nigh of all, I was left thinking that this isn't so much Stone'southward concluding word on the field of study as it is a hope to restart the conversation.
In limited theatrical release today and on the Showtime app. On Showtime on Nov 22nd .
Brian Tallerico
Brian Tallerico is the Editor of RogerEbert.com, and too covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is as well a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Clan.
At present playing
Film Credits
JFK Revisited: Through The Looking Drinking glass (2021)
118 minutes
Latest blog posts
Comments
Source: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jfk-revisited-through-the-looking-glass-movie-review-2021
0 Response to "Movie Through the Looking Glass Ny Times Review"
Post a Comment