A One Mann’s Movies review of “JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass” (2021).
I saw “JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass” advertised on streaming during my recent US holiday. But I never got time to watch it. So this was top of the list when we got home.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
Oliver Stone directed JFK in 1991 starring Kevin Costner as the District Attorney of New Orleans. Since then, fresh material has been declassified. This documentary revisits the idea that the Warren Commission report was a fabrication thrown up to hide a deeper and much more disturbing reality behind the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: TV-14; (From the BBFC web site: “Graphic images of real violence and dead bodies”).
Talent:
Directed by: Oliver Stone.
Written by: James DiEugenio.
Twitter Handle: #JFKRevisited.
Running Time: 1h 58m.
Oliver Stone… Behind a certain picket fence in Deeley Plaza. (Source: Ingenious Media).
“JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass” Review:
Positives:
- For those of us still fascinated by the events of 22nd November 1963, any documentary about JFK is going to be interesting. Oliver Stone threw mud at the Warren Commission report in the 1991 fictionalised film. Here – with the new evidence available to him – he really goes to town on them. You leave this film with no doubt that those in charge of the Warren Commission (which included the future President Gerald Ford) were at best incompetent and at worst corrupt and tasked with hiding a terrible secret.
- There are a couple of real bombshell moments in the film. The first is the bizarre death of Dag Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary General. He was apparently killed in a plane crash but was the only one not burned or charred. Bizarrely, he had a playing card – the ace of spades – stuffed in his tie. The second is the suggestion that there was an earlier aborted assassination attempt on JFK in Chicago. This had bizarre similarities to the Dallas incident.
- There is lots of footage of the reaction to JFK’s death, some of which I don’t remember seeing before.
Negatives:
- The problem I had with this documentary is that you were presented with a lot of information but without critical analysis. Stone clearly has an ‘answer’ he wants the viewer to reach and presents the ‘evidence’ to convince the jury. For example:
- The film makes the suggestion that Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA, was “involved in the sabotage of the plane” that killed Dag Hammarskjöld. The wiki for Mr Hammarskjöld references an alleged comment from Dulles about him being a troublesome person who “should be removed”. But it also suggests a range of other interested parties that might have been involved.
- The film also spends a lot of time talking about the forensic trail of the so called ‘magic bullet’. It argues about how unlikely it is that the bullet would have ‘worked its way out of’ the body to end up on the hospital gurney. It then argues that the bullet might have been switched during its journey to the forensic lab. Finally it argues that the bullet was too perfect to be the magic bullet at all. All of this gets thrown at you with a “Oooh, look at all of this mysterious smoke… there must be a fire here somewhere” approach. But there’s no conclusion about what it all means and what exactly the “fire” is!
- The film includes a lot of gory images of dead bodies. It features the slo-mo of the famous Zapruder footage (used in the film “JFK” as well). But there are also lots of graphic photographs of JFK during the autopsy and of Dag Hammarskjöld post that plane crash. (I didn’t personally have a problem with this but I flag this since the Illustrious Mrs Movie Man didn’t like these images.)
I’ve also been to the book repository in Dallas. And it does rather strain credibility. (Source: Ingenious Media)
Summary Thoughts on “JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass”
It’s a dense and content-rich documentary that reminded me of “All The President’s Men” in terms of the way it machine-gunned you with names and facts that you had to absorb. And elements of the film are truly absorbing and thought-provoking. However, I found it lacked discipline in terms of a) providing a balanced view of the material presented and b) pulling a lot of the scatter-gun theories together to present a clear set of conclusions.
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH3F7rT_eNQ .
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