Chappaquiddick

Boring rehash. Could (should) have been a documentary. Nothing new revealed. Once again showed that he was a sleazeball and his privilege kept him out of jail.

Chappaquiddick is something that means anything to any American over the age of 55. Or else this is an interesting, little-remembered but not forgotten incident from the political history of the United States back in the sixth decade of the 20th century that has interest for college students of American History or Political Science. Chappaquiddick marked the practical end of the Kennedy family political dynasty that was marked by the tragic assassinations of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 in Dallas, Texas, and in 1968 that of his younger brother, the aspiring Presidential candidate, Robert Kennedy, the former, formidable U.S. Attorney General. Robert Kennedy enjoyed such a tremendous margin of popular support that his election as next U.S. president in November 1968 was considered a sure-thing, a shoo-in. It wasn't even considered necessary that Robert Kennedy even bother to campaign but campaign he did and was assassinated in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in the summer of 1968. This is one of those seminal events that U.S. historians call a change in the course of history of the nation. It led to a change of American history in the November election of Republican Richard Nixon instead of the expected President Robert Kennedy. The Democrat Party and the Democrat sympathetic national mass media, Hollywood, national celebrities, et al, desperately looked to Ted Kennedy to carry on the Kennedy tradition, romanticized as, American Camelot, and become the de facto President Robert Kennedy that should have been. Their faith and trust proved misplaced. Ted Kennedy was not of the right stuff his elder brothers had been, leading credence to the family rumors that Ted was the family black sheep. Ted Kennedy avoided legal liability for breaking the law of leaving the site of an accident that he was directly involved in and also not contacting the authorities immediately after an accident. The American people were treated first hand to the reality of how family political power and wealth can cirmumvent legal justice. They would not witness something similar until the criminal trial of OJ Simpson almost three decades later. Yet in the ensuing decades, Ted Kennedy not only avoided political oblivion but succeeded beyond all imagination of becoming one of the most powerful U.S. senators in Congress. Ted appeased everyone by embracing any and all liberal causes and with the Kennedy family name and still formidable political power and wealth became an unbeatable U.S. senator that could never be realistically challenged by any fellow Massachusetts Democrat let alone any Republican foolhardy enough to try. Ted Kennedy became above all political reproach in Massachusetts as a congressional senator and only his death ended his political career once and for all. Yet the incident of Chappaquiddick would stain Ted forever and preclude any hope of attaining the U.S. presidency, which many regarded a good thing as any U.S. president must be a man or woman with unquestionable personal courage, judgment under stress, and appropriate judgment. After senator Ted Kennedy's death in 2010, Republican Scott Brown successfully campaigned to take Kennedy's vacated senate seat for the last two years of the late senator's term. During the abbreviated senatorial campaign, Scott Brown felt it necessary to lionize Ted Kennedy in all his campaign speeches to avoid antagonizing Massachusetts voters. Chappaquiddick the movie will prove how unnecessary it was Scott Brown to do so. Ted Kennedy was the last man to deserve it.

For those that grew up with the Kennedys, and anyone that didn't (ie, everyone) this story needs to be told. I think the movie was done well - acting and production - but that is not the purpose of the movie. I knew a lot of what happened from reading over the years. But - this was an amazing portrayal, and accessible to the story for those less interested in politics. The bottom line? At least Ted, (and if you know the history - his father) were very compromised people. They would, in the end, do anything for power no matter who got in their way. (And as the movie shows, there were always people that would work for them, or vote for them, and dismiss the truth that they knew about them.) From all things that have come out - John and Bobby had great similarities (especially with women). I hope younger people look at this. Ted's faults were his own demons to a great degree - and these were portrayed very well. I would say what we have seen in the last few years is even more damaging to us, and more corrupt. And - if it takes a movie just to say - that people in politics ARE that dirty and DO lie that much - it will be useful for our country. Nuff said.

Let's just say Chappaquiddick is not the kind of movie I'm normally interested in. Politics, is there anything more boring than politics? They are all corrupted and the only thing that drives them is greed and power. In Chappaquiddick they show what happened with Ted Kennedy, the fourth brother, the only one still alive, the one who murdered a secretary. And yes I say murdered because she could have been saved. The good thing about the movie is the acting, that's good and you can't deny that. The story is what it is, the exact thing that would happen when a powerful rich person gets involved in the death of somebody, he just gets away with it and nobody cares. That's how our society works, there is a law for the rich and a law for the poor. Disgusting but nothing new. All in all the movie is worth a watch but don't expect a masterpiece.

Ted Kennedy and his memory even today is idolized by various women's groups. This movie shows the truth for those of us who remember his abandonment of Mary Jo and let her die a slow, agonizing death in the car he crashed. And then his contradictory stories in the cover up. The powerful family even reached into the court system to block exhumation of Mary Jo's body, thus helping the extensive coverup. This is a real story about real people and until this movie, the media protected Teddy and his powerful family. More people should see this, the truth should be out there. And Ted Kennedy should not be idolized. He should have faced a jury on manslaughter charges.

source: Chappaquiddick

Let's just say Chappaquiddick is not the kind of movie I'm normally interested in. Politics, is there anything more boring than politics? They are all corrupted and the only thing that drives them is greed and power. In Chappaquiddick they show what happened with Ted Kennedy, the fourth brother, the only one still alive, the one who murdered a secretary. And yes I say murdered because she could have been saved. The good thing about the movie is the acting, that's good and you can't deny that. The story is what it is, the exact thing that would happen when a powerful rich person gets involved in the death of somebody, he just gets away with it and nobody cares. That's how our society works, there is a law for the rich and a law for the poor. Disgusting but nothing new. All in all the movie is worth a watch but don't expect a masterpiece.

Following the tragic event, the screenplay was filled with far too much hackneyed, scripted sounding dialogue. Jason Clark and Ed Helms were good

Ted, and all of the Kennedy kids, lived under the will of their self centered parents. Joseph P. Kennedy's ambitions drove his sons into public life. The Kennedy patriarch lived his dream of power and glory through his puppet children, they really had no other choice. JFK made some excellent decisions, as president (restraint with the Soviet Union and tax cuts) but was a deeply flawed man when it came to his lack of fidelity in his married life. His father was no role model in this department. The family has endured many losses, sadly, but the world now has a better glimpse into what kind of people these people truly are.

The story of the movie is speculative and does not hold water. When Ted Kennedy drove Kopechne away from the party, the story becomes questionable. Even though Chappaquiddick uses Kennedy's testimonies from the time, it also proves an impossible story to tell 100 percent accurately as certain parts don't quite add up. The strangest aspect of Kopechne's death is the fact that it took Kennedy 10 hours to call the police after driving the car off the bridge. As both the movie and the historical record divulge, a passerby found the car in the morning and called the police. The diver who extracted Kopechne's body said in his testimony that he could have gotten the woman out of the car in 25 minutes following the crash had he been notified, which the movie also shows. Instead of calling the authorities, Ted Kennedy testified that he tried to get Kopechne out of the car himself until he determined that he couldn't and returned to the cottage where the party had been held. There, he got his cousin Joe Gargan (Ed Helms) and Gargan's friend, U.S. Attorney Paul Markham (Jim Gaffigan), who joined the senator in forming a plan. In Kennedy's testimony, he said that he swam back to his hotel - he originally testified that he had been driving himself and Kopechne to the ferry dock to return to their respective hotels in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard. In the movie, however, Joe and Paul bring Kennedy back to Edgartown on a row boat, where he then changes his suit and calls his father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. This is all speculative. The Kennedy team fixing the story is also speculative. Even though Chappaquiddick fills audiences in on the 10 hours between the accident and the next day when Kennedy finally called the police, it still largely remains mysterious why the senator chose not to call first responders immediately. "Gargan and Markham not only failed to get immediate help, but also let the senator swim back alone to report the accident from Edgartown," The movie also speculates that Kopechne could have been alive in the submerged car for a few hours following the crash. But nobody knows the truth of what happened to her. She could have been dead shortly after the accident. Many questions remain with no answers, many speculations with no evidence, and even though Chappaquiddick mostly accurately recounts the events of July 18, 1969 in Massachusetts, the only thing that audiences will walk out of the theater knowing for sure is that the exact events following the car crash will likely never be revealed.