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Monday, November 17, 2014

Killing Kennedy (2013)

The acting in this movie is very solid, but the material doesn't give them much to work with.  The focus is on Lee Oswald and the path that led him to the assasination of Presidnet Kennedy.  In 1959, when Kennedy was deciding to run for president, Oswald was attemptimg to defect to Russia. He was a devoted communist who detested the capitalist society of the United States.  He lived in Minsk for over two years, marrying a Russian wife, before returning to the United States.  The movie depicts him as a paranoid fanatic, who gets very upset and angry at the treatment of Cuba soon after his return. 

On the other side of the coin, we see Kennedy struggling with what to do in response to the missle crisis in Cuba, where he is quite presidential, counterbalanced by his cavorting with women in the White House.  His wife knows and yet she remains devoted to him, and in some ways he to her as well.  None of this is delved into in any depth, and so it is left as a series of events rather than an integrated plot. 

What is crystal clear is that Oswald worked alone, a paranoid and isolated man, separated from his wife nad children and convinced of the rightness of what he is doing. 

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