The Crane Pool Forum

When transformative young president John is murdered, the investigation quickly centers around Lee, an oddball ex-Marine of nebulous ideology, who proclaims himself a patsy.

When Lee is subsequently murdered, crusading New Orleans District Attorney Jim is the only one who believes him, and his subsequent investigation opens up a criminal conspiracy so vast that I'll probably be killed shortly after hitting submit on this post.

I think as a movie it is excellent, with a great cast , Stone's views are dubious though and he's made a whole other career with JFK .

3.5 for me

Yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at. Stone can get terrific performances out of actors, including actors you'd never have guessed. To what end, though, is up in the air.

He had me believing a whole bunch of stuff, and then by the end, Garrison makes a closing argument, and I'm moved to great patriotism and a deep commitment to the truth, and then he turns it over to the jury, and I'm thinking, "Nobody can convict on that. It's a big stupid mess that barely ties in anybody, let alone the guy you're prosecuting."

Glad I finally saw it, though.

Never watched it in full. Saw pieces of it here and there. It is, of course, a total work of fiction although that didn't stop Stone
from selling it as "an alternative truth" and demanding that schools show it to every student in the land.

Garrison was considered a nut by a good chunk of the assassination conspiracy theorists crowd, but Stone makes him the hero.
In the one trial he brought (against the Pesci character) the acquittal came in about 45 minutes and I believe it only took that
long because the jury wanted lunch first.



Side note: Garrison was eventually defeated out of his New Orleans District Attorney position in 1973 following corruption charges
(for which he too was acquitted) by Harry Connick Sr., father of the signer.

The guy he brought to trial was Clay Stone, Tommy Lee Jones' character.

I conflated the wild hair styles.

This was my first time seeing it. Tip of the fedora to Donald Sutherland, who appears after the halfway point in the movie and conveys a whole second film's worth of information in about 10 minutes.

A few years back Stone made JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass, basically he doubles down on the conspiracy as fact , on one hand I kind of admire his dogged determination, Paramount Plus (Showtime) has this one

Stone's version might be wacky, but no more wacky than the Warren Commission's official conclusion that Oswald, acting alone, killed JFK.