It's great when you find a rarely seen film that you've long wanted to view hidden away in the schedules of early morning TV. This fascinating movie must have been one of the first to address openly the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination and deserves kudos for that alone, although its merit as purely cinematic entertainment, viewed from 35 years hence are slightly more questionable now.
Not unnaturally, the film suffers somewhat in comparison to the plethora of subsequent TV documentaries and film-"faction" interpretation of events any one of which can convince me on a good day that theirs is the truth! The polemic here is that a crack "assassination squad" with Burt Lancaster at the helm (on a strictly non-participatory basis, of course) is bankrolled by a high-roller Southern politician (Will Geer) and syphoned through chief coordinator Robert Ryan on the premise that a possible Kennedy dynasty, moving from JFK to Robert and then Teddy Kennedy, standing for amongst other things civil rights and withdrawal from Vietnam, would derail the American Dream to the extent that "executive action" (in other words assassination) is required to halt them in their tracks. Unbelievable perhaps, (I've always tended more to the "mob" theory of ultimate guilt myself) but no more unbelievable than the actual deed itself, truth as ever being stranger than fiction.
The film starts slowly with an almost interminable set of title credits which perhaps deliberately sleepwalks you into a scene where you ultimately realise with a start that these respectable looking men having drinks and making conversation are in fact contemplating the most shocking murder of the 20th century. The film then moves on, the clock now ticking as superimposed dates edge us towards November 22nd as their carefully laid plan takes shape and comes to its inevitable unavoidable conclusion.
By imaginatively intermingling verite video footage of JFK in his last days into the conspiracy narrative, the piece gets some dramatic propulsion, although I'd have to say the dialogue coming from JFK's lips is better than that from the plotters. The most compelling scenes for me are those where we see the assassination team coldly and systematically rehearsing ad infinitum their drill for the shoot and of course the recreation of the murder on Deeley Plaza in the otherwise nondescript urban settings since forever indelibly ingrained on our collective psyche.
One or two aspects of the narrative don't quite ring true however, particularly the statement made to the effect that the plotters could find nothing in his background to discredit Kennedy (history now tells us different of course). The ending though is effective, highlighting the mysterious deaths (18 up to 1967) of material witnesses as further evidence of a cover-up, which in itself became a major plot device in Allan J Pakula's almost contemporaneous thriller starring Warren Beatty, the excellent "The Parallax View".
Despite the heavyweight cast, I found the acting only just passable, almost as if the actors themselves were holding something back from their performances in deference to the event. The supporting roles hold up better, particularly the Lee Harvey Oswald lookalike and drill-commander of Lancaster's unit.
As hinted above, with the welter of material now in the public domain and on celluloid, "Executive Action" can seem a little underpowered, especially compared to Oliver Stone's gargantuan but flawed "JFK". At just over 90 minutes long, this much shorter feature does enough however to make its point and starts the debate all over again, as it should.
Truth will out someday on this shameful episode in American history - it will be interesting to see just whose filmed version of the story actually got closest to it...
Not unnaturally, the film suffers somewhat in comparison to the plethora of subsequent TV documentaries and film-"faction" interpretation of events any one of which can convince me on a good day that theirs is the truth! The polemic here is that a crack "assassination squad" with Burt Lancaster at the helm (on a strictly non-participatory basis, of course) is bankrolled by a high-roller Southern politician (Will Geer) and syphoned through chief coordinator Robert Ryan on the premise that a possible Kennedy dynasty, moving from JFK to Robert and then Teddy Kennedy, standing for amongst other things civil rights and withdrawal from Vietnam, would derail the American Dream to the extent that "executive action" (in other words assassination) is required to halt them in their tracks. Unbelievable perhaps, (I've always tended more to the "mob" theory of ultimate guilt myself) but no more unbelievable than the actual deed itself, truth as ever being stranger than fiction.
The film starts slowly with an almost interminable set of title credits which perhaps deliberately sleepwalks you into a scene where you ultimately realise with a start that these respectable looking men having drinks and making conversation are in fact contemplating the most shocking murder of the 20th century. The film then moves on, the clock now ticking as superimposed dates edge us towards November 22nd as their carefully laid plan takes shape and comes to its inevitable unavoidable conclusion.
By imaginatively intermingling verite video footage of JFK in his last days into the conspiracy narrative, the piece gets some dramatic propulsion, although I'd have to say the dialogue coming from JFK's lips is better than that from the plotters. The most compelling scenes for me are those where we see the assassination team coldly and systematically rehearsing ad infinitum their drill for the shoot and of course the recreation of the murder on Deeley Plaza in the otherwise nondescript urban settings since forever indelibly ingrained on our collective psyche.
One or two aspects of the narrative don't quite ring true however, particularly the statement made to the effect that the plotters could find nothing in his background to discredit Kennedy (history now tells us different of course). The ending though is effective, highlighting the mysterious deaths (18 up to 1967) of material witnesses as further evidence of a cover-up, which in itself became a major plot device in Allan J Pakula's almost contemporaneous thriller starring Warren Beatty, the excellent "The Parallax View".
Despite the heavyweight cast, I found the acting only just passable, almost as if the actors themselves were holding something back from their performances in deference to the event. The supporting roles hold up better, particularly the Lee Harvey Oswald lookalike and drill-commander of Lancaster's unit.
As hinted above, with the welter of material now in the public domain and on celluloid, "Executive Action" can seem a little underpowered, especially compared to Oliver Stone's gargantuan but flawed "JFK". At just over 90 minutes long, this much shorter feature does enough however to make its point and starts the debate all over again, as it should.
Truth will out someday on this shameful episode in American history - it will be interesting to see just whose filmed version of the story actually got closest to it...