REVIEW – Parkland, An Interesting Take On The Kennedy Assassination

With tomorrow being the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK, it was inevitable that we were going to be inundated with documentaries and films about the late President. However, we have always witnessed the same interpretation of the assassination on the big screen, the actual assassination itself, the conspiracy theories surrounding the case and how much JFK was worshipped by those who worked with him and his wife. Oliver Stone's JFK did a lot to change that re-telling of the story. Instead of approaching it as just the assassination, Stone delved into the many conspiracies surrounding the death of the President, forever planting the idea in the minds of many Americans that the JFK had not died as a consequence of Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle and invited them to really examine the case more thoroughly. Thankfully, Parkland is also a departure from the norm of that type of assassination story. Rather than just examining the President and the actual assassination, Parkland takes a look at how Dallas reacted to the shooting of Kennedy, particularly from the point of view of the staff in Parkland Hospital who treated both the President and his assassin within a couple of days of each other. Parkland begins with that day in Dallas showing some video footage of Kennedy's arrival in the city and how the people of the city felt about the arrival of one of the most beloved leaders of their country. The footage is tied in with various introductions to characters who will become important throughout the film, Zac Efron's Dr. Jim Carrico, Paul Giamatti as Abraham Zapruder, the man who took the most famous footage of the actual shooting and Billy Bob Thornton, Forrest Sorrels who was in charge of the entire security operation in Dallas, among others. The assassination itself is not recreated by the film, neither is JFK cast as an actual actor, his story from Dallas is merely told from the footage. Rather, Parkland tells the shooting from the perspective of Zapruder who announces that they have killed him. Following the famous three shots, the President's car is rushed to Parkland hospital where Carrico and his team work frantically to keep him alive while Jackie watches on. Following the shooting, Lee Harvey Oswald and his family are introduced to us along with the story involving the Zapruder footage and how they managed to develop the film for the CIA. Their tales are populated by a devastated population in Dallas, a story which continues on the screen even after the departure of Kennedy's body. The cast, though varied through relative newcomers like Efron (in terms of drama) to old school heroes like Giamatti, work really well together. Efron is perfect as the doctor who is left shattered after the Kennedy operation while Giamatti plays Zapruder perfectly, a man who never got over the death of Kennedy, especially the footage he filmed. Freakishly, Jeremy Strong who plays Lee Harvey Oswald is the image of the assassin. However, the film does on occasion make you feel like you are watching a History Channel documentary. At any given moment you are waiting for a narrator to chime in and give you the background behind any given character. Don't get us wrong, most of the facts are pretty spot on but perhaps they could have dialled the tension up a notch. In terms of re-watching the killing of Kennedy however, Parkland more than does its job by giving an outside perspective and showing exactly how the assassination impacted the city in the immediate aftermath. For this weekend, it is certainly worth it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t87lnqVPGbA