These events are handled in a way that’s about as cut and dry as one could make them. Killing Kennedy could be subtitled The Kennedy Assassination for Dummies.
I’ve always been something of a Kennedy Assassination buff. My dad had a hardbound summary of the Warren Commission Report that I must have gone over hundreds of times when I was a kid. As I grew up, I watched every documentary and news special about that fateful day I could get my hands on. Over the years, there have been a plethora of different conspiracy theories about who carried out the murder of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. No matter if one thinks the mob, the Russians, the CIA, or Lee Harvey Oswald acting as a lone gunman were responsible, there are plenty of documentaries and books that claim to support each theory.
Based on the book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, 2013’s Killing Kennedy is a made-for-TV docudrama that dramatizes the Lee Harvey Oswald theory. The movie attempts to summarize the Kennedy presidency as well as what supposedly led Oswald to assassinate him in Dallas. That’s a fairly ambitious task for a film with a 90 minute running time. Predictably, it doesn’t do a very good job of getting into much detail about any of the subject matter.
In an unusual move for a film of this type, the focus is almost squarely on Lee Harvey Oswald (Will Rothhaar.) Oswald is portrayed as a erratic man with delusions of grandeur. He believes that the FBI considers him a Russian spy. He blames his chronic bouts of unemployment on the FBI, stating that they let prospective employers know he’s a Communist, which he himself doesn’t exactly keep a secret. He buys a rifle and pictures himself as some kind of militant Marxist fighting against the evils of the West.
On the flip side of things, we see what amounts to a “greatest hits” version of the Kennedy presidency. The film briefly touches on the crushing defeat of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and Kennedy’s steely resolve during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Hints of marital infidelity are depicted as he’s seen cavorting with young women in the White House, much to the chagrin of the first lady, Jackie Kennedy (Ginnifer Goodwin.)
Ultimately, Oswald and Kennedy’s paths intersect in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Oswald constructs a sniper’s nest in the Texas School Book Depository and Kennedy is gunned down as his motorcade passes through the streets of the city. These events are handled in a way that’s about as cut and dry as one could make them. Killing Kennedy could be subtitled The Kennedy Assassination for Dummies.
Taken on its own merits as a movie, Killing Kennedy is mediocre at best. Nothing about it belies its made-for-television origins. Aside from strong performances from Michelle Trachtenberg as Marina Oswald and Rob Lowe as Kennedy, the production feels like an extended re-enactment sequence from Unsolved Mysteries. Although director Nelson McCormick feebly attempts to showcase the dichotomy between Kennedy’s and Oswald’s marital relationships, the rest of the film is a by-the-numbers retelling of the Warren Commission Report. It might work as an introduction to the subject matter for someone with a cursory interest but it barely scratches the surface of the full-scale events leading up to and including the assassination. It may be more focused than Oliver Stone’s JFK but it’s too dull to recommend.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
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