Sadly Over-hyped

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I recently watched two movies produced by Bill O'Reilly, Killing Kennedy and Killing Jesus. What can I say? Bill succeeded to kill them both. With such a enormous intriguing stories behind the lives and deaths of those great men, O'Reilly used them to show us a soap opera kind of third grade TV movie. Apparently, two flops in a row! Everybody who watched O'Reilly talk show pays tribute to his oral skills and intelligence. However, in film making Bill O'Reilly came out as a failure. Both his movies are dull and just boring. But even more problematic is Bill O'Reilly's choice to disregard the known facts and to show his own view that doesn't settle with history.

I generally like Rob Lowe, and they have him somewhat looking like JFK. He did get many of his mannerisms and somewhat voice inflection down. But it just seemed like Rob Lowe playing Rob Lowe playing JFK. ALL of the other cast members were way off. The actress playing Jackie was wrong all the way around. The actor playing RFK was just as bad a choice. The script was bad. The story line basically sticks to the Warren Commissions version of things which is generally considered bogus now. They have JFK making decisions all alone rather than taking advice as he was known to do. Over all a huge disappointment. Watch 'The Kennedys' with Greg Kinnear, Katie Holmes and Barry Pepper instead. It's brilliant.

Reviews of a historical film can break down into its accuracy and the quality of the production. This movie does fine on both counts. Many will wish to dismiss the movie's narrative as it portrays Oswald as the lone assassin driven by his personal demons and failures. These viewers would rather see a Costner style conspiracy film with grand villains. I myself believed in the multiple shooter theory for many years, and still have a library of conspiracy books larger than any of the reviewers you are likely see read here, but over time it became clear that Oswald did indeed act alone. To believe otherwise is to credit our government with a competency that history proves is utterly lacking.For the quality of the film, Rob Lowe has captured JFK perfectly. It's sad he didn't win an award for his performance. The talented cast of supporting characters all play well to the known facts, a rare event in the Hollywood culture. The production values, no doubt limited by the film's budget, are adequate for the purpose, and the time period has been recreated well enough not to be distracting.As a devoted fan of President Kennedy and having seen every Kennedy film, I would place this one above average, and a good basic education for those unfamiliar with the story.

KILLING KENNEDY, a TV movie adaptation of a book that claims to expose the truth about Lee Harvey Oswald being the sole assassin behind the JFK murder, has to be one of the dullest movies I've ever witnessed. It comes on the back of Oliver Stone's epic-feeling JFK and the recent, excellent TV miniseries THE KENNEDYS, so what more could there possibly be to say? The answer is, not a whole lot. The idea behind KILLING KENNEDY is to present a dual narrative, one from the point of view of JFK in the years leading up to his death, the other to chronicle Oswald's life from when he first arrives in America. Unfortunately, neither plot strand is interesting, and it doesn't help that there's an insipid, TV-movie feel to the whole thing. It feels staid and safe, never dangerous, despite the natural drama of the history.Rob Lowe makes for a passable Kennedy, although he's no Greg Kinnear, just as Jack Noseworthy is no Barry Pepper. His story has been done to death and nothing new is brought to the table here. Will Rothhaar's Oswald is a little more interesting, but the drama in his life still feels subdued for some reason. Michelle Trachtenberg is unrecognisable from her early days and makes a good stab of playing Oswald's Russian wife. In the end, though, this is a film that treads water throughout, totally ignores any of the conspiracy theories behind the assassination, and ends up being incredibly dull as a result.