Dark Legacy (2009) Poster

(2009)

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5/10
Unvarnished at-the-scene testimony -- then lots of charts -- could've covered more than just JFK
mta7000-732-7080083 September 2017
Warning: Spoilers
I've learned from watching pivotal events unfold over the years, that initial testimony from people at the scene before an official narrative can be spun and all the messy details from initial accounts can be synthesized into corroborating official details can later prove invaluable for those interested later in revisiting the events of a given day and poking holes in said narrative. For example, when reporters on the scene on the morning of 9/11 got all these eyewitness accounts describing a series of explosions right before the twin towers came down OR when BBC reporter Jane Standley talked on the air later in the afternoon about the collapse of the Salomon Brothers Building (Building 7) on BBC Worldwide a whole twenty minutes before it actually collapsed - a clip since removed on copyright grounds - such tidbits, I am sure, made people like Webster Tarpley, author of "George Bush: the unauthorized biography" and later "9/11: synthetic terror" go, "wait, WHAT?!" and delve further.

The first part of this documentary has some great clips of just this kind of unfiltered initial testimony of people doing their jobs on the scene that day in Dallas and initial tidbits not adding up that similarly make anyone paying attention question the established official JFK narrative that's been put forth for over half a century. That George Bush can be plausibly linked to the JFK cover-up is all the more interesting because he can also be plausibly linked to the planning of 9/11 (Tarpley's "9/11: synthetic terror" makes a good case for a Bush/Cheney 9/11 connection) and the planning of the assassination attempt on Reagan (see below).

Having said that, after the documentary presents people-on-the-scene testimony from the JFK era - many of which I hadn't seen before - it then goes into the chart-on-the-wall territory linking Bush Sr.'s portrait to E. Howard Hunt's portrait, etc, etc in the same way that made my eyes glaze over watching Glenn Beck on the Blaze back in the day discussing the nefarious deeds of and all the links between Bill Ayers, Rahm Emanuel, Eric Holder, Valerie Jarrett, Saul Alinsky, George Soros, and the rest of Obama's crowd drawn from the Chicago machine, academia, and the global establishment.

Despite that, this documentary did manage to present some interesting facts I wasn't aware of like Zapata Petroleum putting Bush Sr. right in the middle of the Caribean where he could have been involved in anti-Castro operations in the '60's like the Bay of Pigs invasion code-named - what else? - Operation Zapata or businessman George de Mohrenschildt turning up dead in '77 with a self-inflicted gunshot wound right before he was to meet with an investigator from the House Select Committee on Assassinations to discuss the JFK case. I didn't realize anyone (besides Lee Harvey Oswald of course) from the JFK era was silenced that way. This bore an interesting resemblance to Gary Webb's "suicide" by two shots in the head after going public about the CIA's alleged role in the cocaine trade during Iran-Contra era (Bush again?) and portends the "whistleblowers beware" era we're so familiar with today exemplified in the Michael Hastings case where his Mercedes C250 ran into a tree and blew up sending the engine block flying several hundred yards behind the car right before he was to go public with some dirt he had on the CIA. (Remember all those engine blocks ejected from cars crashing into walls shown in those "You could learn a lot from a dummy" TV ads in the 80's and 90's? I don't either but recreating Hastings' accident to see if an engine could be made to eject like that would've made a great Mythbusters series finale.)

What I was hoping for from this documentary but didn't get was more time devoted to discussing Bush Sr.'s pre-9/11 connections - his business ties to the bin Laden family going back to the 1970's (Bush and Osama bin Laden's brother, Salem bin Laden, founding Arbusto Energy, an oil company based in Texas, In 1978 acc. to the Denver Post article, "Bush ties to bin Laden haunt grim anniversary") or the Bush's pre-Reagan assassination connection with would-be assassin John Hinckley, Jr.'s, family ("Bush's son was to dine tonight with suspect's brother" by Arthur Wiese and Margaret Downing, Houston Post ca. March 1981 which reads in part, "Scott Hinckley ... was to have been a dinner guest Tuesday night at the home of Neil Bush..." - is that why Nancy seemed to dislike the Bushes so much?) and other "weird Bush stuff" that could establish a pattern that if touched on here, after awhile, would make anyone stop and say, "wait, WHAT?!". It's like the whole "Clinton body count" phenomenon where suspicion unavoidably mounts with the sheer number of deaths of former Clinton associates that Snopes, Mother Jones, etc, have to explain away all the while their credibility with each new iteration of their broken-record narrative and also reducing the odds that all those freak accidents, suicides, and deadly burglaries were just random happenstances and that's what could've been shown here. I mean, if your neighbor's business name showed up in a failed government operation, you'd probably shrug your shoulders and think, "huh, that's random" but then if their son's friend's brother tried to kill a prominent public figure, you'd wrinkle your nose and think, "that's odd" and finally if your neighbor's business partner's brother blew up a building, at some point you'd probably begin to wonder about your neighbor and at least ask them about it especially if they were running for public office.

"JFK" is in this documentary's title so I shouldn't have expected this other "Weird Bush stuff" to be touched on but, still this documentary could've helped explain to the uninitiated why the Bush's family name is mud as far as those who are awake are concerned and why they likely won't be winning more races for prominent political office any time soon...
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7/10
Look past sophomoric presentation
cyclops_screener28 March 2021
The graphics in this documentary are unforgivably childish. I cannot explain the disconnect between the research and presentation of intriguing and challenging information with these goofy, immature visuals. George H. W. Bush certainly had a questionable past, and egregious political career. The facts that have come to light over the years are difficult to refute. Whether it was his involvement with the CIA in the early 1960s, something Bush denied under oath when appointed Director of CIA, and throughout his 1988 presidential campaign, or his bargaining with Iran behind the scenes in the lead-up to the 1980 presidential election, George H. W. Bush had a lot to answer for. The information conveyed in this documentary is good. I cannot understand why the filmmaker would undermine his research by presenting it in such a childish manner. Push past the sophomoric visuals and listen to the information.
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7/10
More Information but many unanswered questions
criswillis77724 January 2024
This documentary answers many of the unexplained parts of the presidential assassination but also opens many questions that cannot be fully explained nor have they been proven as fact enough reach the legal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. This film explodes several controversial theories and conspiracies but really does not answer many of the important questions.

* Who really killed President Kennedy?

* If there was a government cover-up link the parts together in a coherent way that establishes a who, what, how, and why of the assassination plot? And more importantly, was it important enough to kill a sitting president. Were they really afraid that President Kennedy would dismantle our national defense structure with the luming threats of international terrorism, communism, and world peace ever before us knowing that it is not likely that we would ever be able to trust world peace to them permanent care.
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Evidence of another shooter
ejones-7784012 March 2017
To Tcart...Watch the Video of Pres. Kennedy's car coming onto Elm St..just as it passes in front of the book depository , slow it down and you will see Oswald standing in the doorway next to a Black woman...while the rifle is seen sticking out the window.n Impossible to be in 2 places at once...THERE GOES YOUR OSWALD THEORY ! HE WAS A PATSY ! The KILL shot came from the front as the reaction of Kennedy's body shows.A body goes back when shot from the front !
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8/10
Deeply challenging.
kenodunning15 April 2016
For many, if not most, Americans the material John Hankey presents challenges some of our most deeply held cultural beliefs. That can make the video very hard to watch for many. But that in and of itself does not render Mr. Hankey's hypotheses as false. Can our deeply held, culturally instilled, predispositions prevent us from accepting information, facts, when this information is uncomfortable and threatening to what may be our preexisting world view? Having experienced the national trauma that accompanied the JFK assassination and, along with many others, having the lingering, inescapable impression that the official explanations were blatantly evasive and incomplete, I am glad there are scholars such as Mr. Hankey still working on the matter.
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1/10
One-sided Opinion Piece
sheldonchris2 October 2023
I started watching this with an open mind, but quickly the one-sided bias became evident. I love documentaries but this is not a documentary. The makers have hand-picked facts and tried to fit them into what they want the story to be. The fact they digitally added a swastika armband on Nixon is an inflammatory image that shows the whole piece can't be taken seriously. I'm open to legitimate facts of a conspiracy and have watched many documentaries that provide facts and leave it to the viewer to form an opinion. This piece is far from legitimate, and it's scary that others have given it a higher rating.
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8/10
Eye-opening, despite being clearly low-budget and biased during some points
OneMovieLover7 January 2014
'Dark Legacy' is a film that everyone interested in the Kennedy assassination and its circumstances should watch. It's on Netflix instant streaming, which greatly increases its accessibility.

First of all, the film presented tons of pieces of evidence that prove JFK was probably murdered as the result of a conspiracy. It proves why the single-bullet theory is absolutely ridiculous. It uses government memos to prove the points it makes. Basically, it has more detail and convincing arguments than other works that try to do the same thing. The person who made the film claims that it proves the conspiracy's existence beyond a reasonable doubt. Maybe so.

Unfortunately though, even the most casual of viewers could tell that this is a low-budget film. There's nothing wrong with low-budget films, but this one had a couple of spelling mistakes (i.e. "Napoleon" being spelled "Napolean," and lack of punctuation in a crucial sentence (i.e. at one point it says, "Hoover knew that the Bushs were Nazis"). This is not good for a documentary, because it lowers the credibility.

Also, I couldn't help but notice that some of the facts presented were biased after doing some research. #1: Allen Dulles actually was not a Nazi sympathizer. #2: Saying that Bay of Pigs was done without any of JFK's approval or foreknowledge is kind of misleading. #3: JFK's head moves forward a little before going back and to the left.

Parts of this film are eye-opening, and much of it is good film-making. However, it's obviously low-budget and some of it is kind of biased. I guess I'd say the good kind of outweighs the bad.
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2/10
Biased "Documentary" That Jumps to Too Many Conclusions
TahoeEast4 December 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Dark Legacy had been in my Netflix queue for sometime. It was one of those films that looked interesting but I just never got around to it. I finally did and I am glad I did insomuch as now it can be out of my queue. Forever.

Director/writer/producer/conspiracy theorist John Hankey deserves credit for taking the initiative to produce a feature length, low budget documentary on the JFK assassination. He correctly states that several polls have shown a large number of Americans doubt the government's story on what happened that fateful day in Dallas back in 1963. Hankey does a very good job of stepping the viewer through the events of the day and in particular, raises several good points about the chain of custody of the President's body and if it was somehow disturbed between Parkland and Bethesda hospitals.

Had Hankey stopped there he would have had a good, 20-30 minute YouTube video. Instead, he spent the remainder of his time on this nonsensical attempt to link the assassination to George H.W. Bush. His favorite graphic being pictures of Bush's father, Prescott, Bush the father and George W. wearing swastika armbands.

Everything Hankey touches goes back to a Republican conspiracy. Whether it is JFK, his son John F. Kennedy Jr.'s untimely death, or even Mitt Romney. Hankey has a built in conspiracy that involves the Bush family and assorted others in the so-called Illuminati. For me personally, it is a disappointing mess of a film because I do think there is some level of conspiracy in government and in particular, a concerted effort to create enemies and promote war for the sake of the military industrial complex. If Hankey could focus on those issues, he could be considered a serious filmmaker. Unfortunately, this first stab at a feature film discredits him as a documentary filmmaker and leaves him viewed by most as another misguided partisan.
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8/10
Reveals many possible players in the Kennedy conspiracy while shoring up the mysterious details
demourenewsguy2 December 2018
Warning: Spoilers
This is not necessarily a good jumping off place for someone who knows nothing about the Kennedy assassination conspiracy but rather a great film for those who are awake to mysteries and still want to know more.

Be advised that this is not a film for the squeamish as many of the disturbing details involve proof of tampering with Kennedy's body before and after autopsy. There are also many views of the Zapruder film and detailed discussion of ballistic contact with human anatomy.

Players in the assassination are tracked, named and labeled leaving them nowhere to hide. The connections and corroborating facts place many interesting people in the thick of the obvious lies and deceit. It is sad that they have never had to answer for their duplicitous charades.

Yes, much is circumstantial but it is NOT unsubstantiated or wildly speculative.
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1/10
Absolute reaching at it's best
jannapicarin26 May 2021
I've never seen anything more contradictory in my life and I'm not one to comment on anything but the timelines, especially with the CIA in 63 when it was William Colby but this idiot is claiming George Bush Sr was director then but that didn't happen until years later in 1976. Things may have transpired we don't know but to put this out there and pollute people's minds who do not know any better is despicable. This is not the end all be all of what our history says. Look for yourselves. Be individuals and do not follow this paranoid venom. I watched it with open eyes and heart until the inconsistencies started to come along. Man... Am I disappointed.
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9/10
Finally the dots are connected......
newtonzz29 April 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I have read many books exploring the Kennedy assassination and have visited the 6th Floor Museum in Dallas and was also alive and conscious at the time of the assassination. This documentary finally connected all the dots and supplied an important element of credibility that all other accounts were lacking. Leading to that point is a question of that time period that is answerable with certainty by everyone conscious on November 22, 1963. The question is: " Where were you and what were you doing at the time that you learned President Kennedy had been shot?" All of us have a clear and precise answer to that question, except three infamous players of that time period. Those players supplying contradictory public statements are E. Howard Hunt, Richard Nixon, and George H. W. Bush. This documentary finally shows why the secret service was not in place in the Dallas motorcade, it also shows Kennedy speeches that were part of the CIA motivation for rubbing out a president that was intent on bringing lost presidential power back into Executive branch control. Hoover's FBI memo exposes most of the bad actors in this story and ties the different narratives together. Many of the relationships revealed here were not highlighted previously, like the fact that Nixon was in Dallas at the time of the assassination and that Jack Ruby who gunned down Osward on live TV, had been a worker with Congressman Nixon in 1947. Also that the autopsy on Kennedy was performed by a Doctor with no credentials in that area who destroyed his autopsy notes. The list of obvious red flags of deception goes on and on and on.
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1/10
Maybe the worst documentary ever made
RussHog19 November 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This movie deserves zero stars.

It's poorly made - makes no sense - and almost none of the plot points connect at all. Basically some people knew some people and therefore Bush killed JKF!?!?

???

Ever since JFK was killed - a great deal of Americans have wondered whether it was a lone gunman or a vast conspiracy. There is an entire industry based on this question.

Perhaps it was the CIA and the military industrial complex - or hit men from the Italian mafia who felt betrayed by the Irish Kennedy's - or maybe LBJ - or maybe it was just one lone guy with a gun!

I call tell you this - anyone who thinks this movie is true - that Bush has so much power he pulled all of these strings - is an idiot.

It's trendy to link old man Bush was a master manipulator behind so much stuff - because Bush was powerful and his name shows up in a lot of places.

I am sure Bush did some bad stuff - but be the man who killed JFK?

Stupid.
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8/10
Bad Presentation, Obviously Biased, Awesome Information
theSquirmingcoil3 March 2023
I would love to see a detractor of this film go through the information provided, piece by piece, and explain how or why it should be dismissed - instead of just umbrella-dismissing anything and everything that's been labeled by WHOEVER as a a 'conspiracy theory.' Conspiracies actually exist, therefore it is an absolute fact that some 'conspiracy theories' are valid, & to dismiss an argument solely on the basis of it being labeled a 'conspiracy theory' is idiotic at best. Its truly odd that intelligent individuals can dismiss so many eye witness accounts & mounds of physical & circumstantial evidence, going so far as to vehemently attack anyone that doesn't agree with the Warren Report? If everyone thought like this we'd all still be the loyal subjects of a king, worshiping whatever gods we were told to...

However I digress, Dark Legacy is the most fleshed out, thought provoking JFK assassination theory I've encountered. Again, I would love to see a detractor of the film go through the information provided, piece by piece, and explain how or why it should be dismissed.
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1/10
Most absurd show ever
lyndalu-4574026 November 2017
I was going to say this was the most ridiculous documentary I've ever seen but you can't call this show a documentary, its more like a comedy based on the most ridiculous assumptions. If you're looking for a good laugh, this is your show, if you are looking for unbiased truths, you won't find them here.
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8/10
Convincing and nicely set out
Kingslaay1 October 2021
I quite enjoyed this documentary and I'm a big fan of JFK and curious about how he was really assassinated. This gives a well put together argument as to why George H Bush and certain other parties were involved. It's possibly the best case I could expect to see with a lot of information hidden and kept from the public. Quite plausible that he got a lot of things right. R. I. P JFK you were taken too soon.
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1/10
A film for the mentally challenged
Tcarts765 April 2015
This is a film that will have all the tin foil hat crowd all up in arms. It's proof that stupid has no bounds. I always have to laugh at conspiracy theories that idiots come up with to hate Bush. People that were born before the end of the cold war have been buying this stupidity for years. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, plain and simple. He was a mentally unstable. He was the kind of communist that communists would run from. If you ever see some of the forensic evidence and recreations.The "magic bullet" reacted just like most bullets do with that rifle. One shot took out an electrical cable. The car was a parade car so Kennedy was elevate. All reputable forensic investigations say the Warren Commission got it right. Please stop believing in magical unicorns. This film is best watched by people that need a good laugh.

As far as Bush goes, idiots come up with theories of some evil plot because they are to stupid to think for themselves and look at reality. The real problem with Bush the elder was that he didn't get a second term. The whole "New World Order" and "Shining light on the hill" wasn't some corporate conspiracy. The fact is that the guy ran the CIA before being Vice President. His term came when the Cold War ended. This "new world order" conspiracy is bunk and what he was really saying is that we did business with and backed some really bad people to keep us safe. Now that the Soviet Union was out of the game, we could start to make things right, and better for everyone. That is why he went after Noriega and Saddam. CNN and Ted Turner, big anti-war nut jobs cause Saddam to be left in place. Had that not been the case, the world would be a much better place.
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1/10
This movie is for people who have lost their minds...
jwibbeler16 September 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I don't know what to say. This 'documentary' is an absolute train wreck. I have seen cable access shows that were better produced and made more valid arguments. This 'documentary' proves the axiom that ANYONE can make a movie...

Now, I won't spend a lot of time breaking down the hundreds of logical errors and giant holes in the logic presented in this film. There are two reasons for this. First, there are simply too many to address. Second, the 'logic' behind those errors is so discombobulated that I would first have to explain their twisted reasoning, then point out the flaws. It would simply take too long.

I don't think this is really a spoiler but in a nutshell, this movie tries to tie the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to George Bush by tracing contacts all the way back to Adolph Hitler...

Do I need to go any further???

The problem with every single point in this film is that IT PROVES NOTHING other than the fact certain people high in government positions might know one another... Even that is a stretch in some cases. George Bush was head of the CIA, OF COURSE HE NEW ALLEN DULLES... I mean, really???? How could he NOT know Allen Dulles????

It is just silly beyond belief. The entire premise is that simply because people knew each other, they assassinated the president. It is the work of a person with POOR CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS made for people with the same condition.

Here is a short breakdown of who will like this movie. If you have any of the traits or conditions below, this movie is for you:

1. You hate the Bush family and are willing to believe that every single thing that happens on the planet is their doing.

2. You have poor critical thinking skills and tend to find correlation between people and events that don't exist because of your preconceived notions and thinking errors.

3. You believe literally ANY conspiracy theory, no matter how false or dense.

4. You have an associates degree in Sociology from any Community College in the United States.

5. You are a heroin/meth/coke addict.

6. You have suffered severe trauma to the head.

7. You are mentally retarded.

8. You smoke copious amounts of marijuana.

Otherwise stay away from this cinematic turd......
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3/10
Not thorough enough.
rjteasdale-853073 November 2023
Warning: Spoilers
This documentary seems to be interesting and compelling but it's clearly a witch hunt. It goes after Republicans such as Nixon and George H. W. Bush, but neither of them had any power to accomplish the assassination and cover up. On the other hand, the documentary never even casually mentions vice president Lyndon B. Johnson who is the most likely government official behind the assassination and cover up. Johnson was suspected, in fact known, for having his opponents killed while he was in Texas . Johnson is a known source of corruption. Many consider him to be the most corrupt president we've ever had. It would not be outside of reality for Johnson to have had Kennedy assassinated. And he is the most likely government source for the assassination. Not Nixon or Bush. While they're certainly embedded in the tale that this documentary weaves, it doesn't make sense. They didn't have the power to do the things necessary to cause this to happen and cover it up. Only the president or someone extremely close to the president could do it and that would be Lyndon B Johnson. So that, plus the childish character cutouts and the silly dialogue at times, make this not really worth watching.
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4/10
Leaps and assumptions
barroncarpenter8 January 2024
Warning: Spoilers
Badly done. Anyone who's ever met anyone else is involved according to the narrator. Nazis and the Bushes and Nixon. Oswald a CIA and a FBI agent? Do I think there was more than one man responsible for the assassin? Yes I most certainly do think that there was a conspiracy on the Kennedy assassination , but this documentary is poorly put together and consists of the narrator repeatedly trying to get you to take his assumptions as fact. He tries to make connections at every corner. There's a lot taken out of context to fit his narrative.

Read "Last Word" by Mark Lane It is a lot easier to believe.
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