Parkland

The assassination of John F. Kennedy has been recanted in countless movies and television shows for the past 20 years. So what makes Parkland any different from Oliver Stone's JFK or the miniseries The Kennedys? The difference is that this film is in no way, shape or form a political film. This is NOT a conspiracy film, this is not a political family saga, this is a story that we have never been shown. The people who surrounded JFK on his final hours are the people that saw the true horrors of November 22 and Parkland puts us right there with them. The cast is masterful, Billy Bob Thorton, Zac Effron, and Paul Giamatti being the stand outs of the impressive list. The story is impactful, showing the audience what Parkland hospital was really like that fateful day when President Kennedy was brutally murdered. The hysteria, the sweat, the tears and the blood fill the emergency room as a determined Zac Effron pounds on the chest of Kennedy's body. It is moments like these that save Parkland from the cheesier scenes, notably any with Ron Livingston. The film succeeds partially to Effron's small but commanding performance and a latter half of the film focused on a brooding Robert Oswald, who is played pitch perfectly by James Badge Dale. The film doesn't break any new ground in the dramatic factor but instead reminds us of how good these actors can be in the right setting. The story is split between the actual events of the assassination, the search and capture of Oswald, and the colossal screw up at the FBI that may or may not have prevented Kennedy's assassination. In any sense, Parkland works with the 90 minute running time despite so much information coming at you at once, which sometimes works against its advantages, making for a confusing watch for a couple minutes before you can have time to process what is going on. Despite a jarring narrative at times, Parkland succeeds in performances alone and is worth it for that alone.

This one i found out is just centered in non important sentimental themes. To learn about the truth I recommend the producers of this awful and goofy movie watching the documentaries from Nigel Turner, The Men Who Killed Kennedy (parts 1 to 9)and Oliver Stone's JFK. This movie ignores all facts pertaining to the conspiracy already acknowledged by the US supreme court, that came to the conclusion that there was a conspiracy involved in the assassination. The producers of this junk decided to openly ignore what everybody already knows because of the supreme court's findings after the Warren report. And please Hollywood, stop trying to fool us into believing the lone assassin bluff after 50 years!. We all know Oswald was a patsy and John and Robert Kennedy where killed by the evil empire.

I'm not too sure why this film has had such critical reviews but what I will say is that given the depth of this story, the condensation of this into a mere 90 minutes manages to pull off the gist of the tale quite well. Anyone who has read "Four Days in November", "The Death of a President", and " The Day Kennedy Was Shot" can appreciate how much more could've been told in this film but in the same vein doing so would've made watching this film interminable. Oliver Stones "JFK" could pull off three hours because much of what he directed was contrived and speculation which makes for more interesting cinema but "Parkland" tells the story as it was and leaves the speculation of conspiracy to others. In the end this was a good effort because fundamentally some stories are best left to proper documentary film makers and historical writers who possess the talent to tell it in a way only they can. (and there is plenty of excellent material out there to read and watch)" Parkland" may help encourage the curious to seek this material out given the half century anniversary of this tragic event. In the final analysis, this movie achieves its goal of depicting how the assassination of the 35th president affected its witnesses, peripheral players and ultimately a nation even till this day. This was not a film meant for controversy, Academy Award nominations or box office ticket sales records.

First of all, most if not all of the low/negative reviews are based upon lack of questioning the events that transpired. This is not a conspiracy theory fueled film. The aim of this film is to document the immediate aftermath of President Kennedy's assassination through 4 different story lines and it does just that. Maybe I'm a little bit biased because it's one of my favorite historical events to research and learn about, but I found it to be an insightful and well done look at the people who became involved after the event, without showing/repeating most of the general information that most, if not all viewers familiar with the assassination are already aware of. I, for one, am satisfied that they did not blatantly show the entire Zapruder film once the FBI obtained and developed it. Not because I'm squeamish, but because although some may be, and also that this film is not primarily set on the actual assassination itself but rather the emotion and reactions felt afterward. However, I do wish that they had shown more of Lee Oswald than they did. But then again like I previously said, most people who have researched the case have seen the videos and know the story (based on the Warren Commission at least) of Oswald's whereabouts and his part in shooting the President. People complaining there's not enough "conspiracy" or lack of Oswald in the story, feel free to watch Oliver Stone's JFK instead, or open up a YouTube search and have at it. So if you read everything I wrote, or just skipped down here, Parkland is an insightful look at the immediate aftermath of Kennedy's assassination and is highly recommended for fellow history buffs in general, or those interested in learning about the events surrounding November 22, 1963.

Parkland was parked in spot 13 Will !!! I watched Parkland mainly because of James Badge Dale's (as Robert Oswald in Parkland) involvement in it, in hopes that finally the truth will be told uncovering the cover-up of JFK's assassination. But oh boy, was I wrong! I really enjoyed Rubicon TV series starring James Badge Dale, but unfortunately Parkland was far from it. To me Parkland is nothing but re-framing of Oswald as the deluded gun-man assassinating the president. And the whole lone, deluded gun-man theory is nothing but a laughable matter to some, including the President George Bush Sr (Pls see the video on youtube, George H.W. Bush Sr laughing when he mentions "a deluded gun- man assassinated President Kennedy at Gerald Ford's funeral.) Very powerful devils killed JFK and played their parts in his assassination on November 22nd, 1963 in Dallas. I believe assassination of Kennedy, not only changed the course of history of America but the world. That of-course is not a laughable matter at all. Within the 50yrs after the assassination we learned a lot about the Powerful Devils that killed Kennedy, how they got away with it, and who truly benefited from it. But like another IMDb member pointed out in the IMDb message boards, Parkland will do nothing more than to inform the uninformed with disinformation. For example, today we know that Harvey Lee Oswald was in-fact working for the US government (on government payroll he was receiving officially 200USD/month), just like his mother Marguerite Oswald (portrayed by Jackie weaver) says so in this movie. The only person talking about Harvey Lee Oswald working for the US government is his mother in Parkland, portrayed like a crazy person. I don't know whether Marguerite Oswald was a crazy person or not in real life. But I'm sure Parkland portrays Marguerite Oswald like a crazy person for a reason. And to me that reason is part of Re-framing of Oswald done in this movie. I bet most people reading or hearing Oswald was working for the US government will say, yeah yeah that's BS, his crazy mother kept saying so ... We also know why he was the perfect patsy today. Even the real Oswald stated so to the reporters "I'm just a patsy" before he got shot by Jack Ruby (acting totally different in real life than the Harvey Lee Oswald portrayed by Jeremy Strong in Parkland). And why we don't hear him saying "I'm just a patsy" in Parkland ? So to me Parkland is a movie about Re-framing of Oswald, repeating the "official" government story, entirely ignoring the truth uncovered within the last 50yrs... To me Parkland is an injustice to the memory of JFK, and an insult to the intelligence of the people!!!

I watched this on a whim expecting nothing, and was still disappointed. The subject is fascinating as hell; President Kennedy is about to arrive in Dallas and the next couple of days, centered on the Parkland hospital where both him and Oswald died. I wasn't alive when it happened, have no memories of my own. The veracity of the facts portrayed is also of little concern to me, this may sound absurd but I subscribe to a worldview that is fine with ineffable truth and finds just as much of it in the stories we make up. Alas this filmmaker is not here for the weave of stories, not talking here about lurid conspiracy but more generally the fact that we may never be able to piece together this truth but we can perhaps a broader one, by following the storythreads leading out, by examining the tendency to imagine story. Truths about what it means for the floor of the world to suddenly give way. This guy milks the easy contrasts again and again, right down to the trite finale with parallel funerals, one a loved hero the other despised by all. On top of that, the cinematic world was not believable enough for me to be immersed, we don't really inhabit this. I so wish Altman had got to do it. The biggest failure for me is that in all this we have, of course, Zapruder. His film changed everything, turning a nation into detectives. See, at the heart of all these stories was this film where a man is suddenly removed from the world before our eyes, as if by a callous noir whim. It was more than filmed murder, there is somehow a cosmic dimension to it. And there is so much to do with the fact that this man is about to film fate, that he has captured more than time, that it just disappoints how little they did with it. Yes it is the film we need to see to make sure, as secret service agents muse, but isn't it more than closure? It haunts.

Parkland is well done with an excellent cast. It is also an odd movie because it has no "plot". It's a docudrama, re-enacting a series of scenes and incidents. There's no story arc, no real character development or transformation. The character with the most "story" is Abraham Zapruder, who is affected by the experience, and we see it. Many of the other characters are just there, doing what they do. Zac Efron is kind of wasted in his role as surgical resident Dr. Jim Carrico, because he just does surgical-resident stuff; the script doesn't exploit any of his charms. Parkland is tightly paced, for the most part, but sags a bit toward the end, because there actually is no end, just the last incident. They had to fall back on an audio wrap-up by Walter Cronkite and pull the lens out of focus to close it up. Conspiracy theorists will find no solace here, because this movie is about the people who weren't part of the crime.

Though I agree with reviewers that some of the acting was less than stellar, particularly in the vapid portrayal of Jackie Kennedy, I became completely engaged in the devastation slammed into the lives of the "little people" and those charged with handling the travesty that was the point of "Parkland." Everyone was just "going about their lives," excited to see this hero President in their own city. It wasn't about memorable dialog. That was in the prepared statements of straight-faced Walter Cronkite in that new era of television reporting, but it wouldn't have been appropriate for those on the scene. The point was the event, and the total panic and confusion in what was an incredibly short time span. People were stunned, and they didn't know what to do, whether in the operating room to protect the dignity of the President by leaving his shorts on, or faced with the decision of where to put the casket. I don't care if these didn't happen in reality. I expected to be emotionally engaged in the story and I wasn't disappointed. I was appropriately jolted by the shifts between images of how each person in Dallas responded - from the Secret Service to the Dallas Medical Examiner to the typically human compulsions to crowd the one-foot square window into the operating room. Though the portrayal of Marguerite Oswald might have seemed "over the top," for me it captured her bizarre, insane determination to be the aggrieved party. What a dramatic contrast with the personal strength of her son, Robert Oswald. Even though he always believed his brother killed the President of the United States, we learn that he never changed his name and didn't move his family from the Dallas area. And the life of Abraham Zapruder was decimated. Here's a small business owner who's excited about using his new state-of-the-art movie camera to capture the President's visit. He wasn't there to film an assassination. I think I would have been "sweaty," too, if this kind of responsibility dropped onto my shoulders because of an inconceivable twist of fate. Suddenly his life was taken over by the Secret Service, the ultimate national police force, and his integrity and resistance to being in the limelight were obvious. Though he was the center of attention in processing the film footage, that was clearly not his role in the overall unfolding of events. Bottom line, I guess the reviewer and I had very different perspectives on the validity of Peter Landesman's goals for "Parkland" and how well he achieved them. I couldn't disagree more strongly with Peter Debruge's review.

The story and acting are first class. They share a lot of information in the movie that you don't normally hear about. However, they tried so hard at making all the footage look original it ruins the movie. We had to leave the movie even before the half way point. The camera's jump around so much that we started feeling sick and nauseated. I have never had to leave in the middle of a movie before because of something like this. It' really too bad because I really wanted to see this movie. If you go see the movie by all means take some kind of motion sickness medication before you go. Very disappointed!! There were only 4 people in the theater, I think word is getting out already. Why in the world would they produce a movie like this?

I watched this movie expecting an accurate depiction of the events that led to the Assassination of JFK, & what took place there after. This is not that movie. This is an injustice to our last great president. I am very disappointed in Billy Bob Thornton & Paul Giamatti for supporting this inaccurate depiction of vile trash! Don't waste your time, this movie supports the lies we've been told of the Assassination of this great man. What a waste! The only movie that I've seen that depicts the true events that took place & is based upon a true story is Oliver Stones JFK. I understand this movie is showing what the Government & other agencies said took place, but there is a lot more to the story. One of the CIA assassins admitted to what actually took place just a year or two before on Jesse Venturas Conspiracy Theory, but ya won't see that on any of the news networks because they are owned by the gov. & other agencies that control the world. When is the truth going to come out?