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.
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.