Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

wondercritic These documentaries are CIA-approved and thus worth very little. They use paid actors for reenactments and "experts" on ballistics and so forth, but they always operate within predefined limits. One sacrosanct principle that can NEVER be questioned in any of these productions is that Lee Harvey Oswald was one of the gunmen and was on the 6th floor of the Book Depository at the time of the shooting. They refer to Warren Commission findings, as if by repeating them, the viewing public will never question them. But the Warren Commission is legally discredited, as any lawyer worth his or her salt will tell you. The Warren Commission was not a court or even a proper investigative body. It was a stitch-up.There is no material evidence that Oswald was on the 6th floor - no fingerprints, no eyewitnesses, no forensics of any kind. So a documentary like this that hypothesizes that Oswald "could not have fired the fatal head shot" isn't really that useful. A shot from behind and to the left, as this film asserts, seems "new," but it doesn't really matter, does it? The kill shot probably didn't come from that direction, considering the massive EXIT WOUND at the back of JFK's head on his right side. It most likely came from the right side, or from inside the sewer drain on Elm Street. Who cares? Thinking, informed people already know Oswald didn't fire that shot. This whole film is meant to divert and distract. It posits a conspiracy at cover-up by the Secret Service, a small agency, not the CIA? Give us a break. What rubbish.At the end of the day, thinking people know that the JFK assassination was a coup d'etat by the national security state. Nothing this documentary says makes a whit of difference to that. So this film is just another addition to the garbage heap of mainstream media commentary on this tragic event.

FlushingCaps It's impossible to only review this as a film and ignore the story--the theory about the assassination presented.As a film, the "actors" doing the re-created scenes were miserable. There was way too much repetition, making the film seem padded--to fill out the 2 hours including commercials.As to the theory--there are two reactions I had--chortling and shaking my head in amazement.We are supposed to believe that the third shot did not come from Oswald's gun, but from a rifle fired by accident by a Secret Serviceman sitting, rather, standing in the car right behind the president's car. Presented in the film is the notion that on hearing the first shot, this agent reached down and picked up a rifle on the floor, then when the car sped up after the second shot, the agent fell backwards and his rifle just happened to be fired by accident right during the portion of a second it was pointed right at the president's head.The unlikelihood of that happening is close to 100%. First of all, the agent would most likely have not had his finger on the trigger while he was holding the rifle up and looking around to see if he could spot a shooter. If he fell back and lowered the rifle, there would have been less than a second when it really was pointed toward the president at all.More significantly, IF this had all happened, there is no way in the world none of the other 9 people aboard (including agents on the running boards) that vehicle would not have reported hearing a gunshot from a couple of feet away. Certainly some of the hundreds in Dealey Plaza would have reported seeing and/or hearing a gunshot from the area of the car behind the president. Someone with a still camera would surely have photographed something to support this film's preposterous claim. The only photo showing him with a rifle was taken after leaving the scene of the shooting-which is when the agent says he picked up the rifle in the first place.The film makes a big deal about the autopsy claiming the entry wound on the final shot was reported as 6 millimeters, when the bullets from Oswald's gun were 6.5 mm. It never mentions that skin can contract after a hole is poked. It doesn't mention that the hole in JFK's neck wound--the one they agree came from Oswald's rifle--was measured as 4 mm. So much for that notion.They never mention that ballistic tests on actual human skulls found bullets of the type Oswald used often did shatter on impact and explode like the final bullet in the JFK shooting. Instead, they waste time shooting bullets into melons to demonstrate how some bullets will explode on impact more easily than others.Presenting only evidence that advances your claims and excluding facts known that contradict those claims is dishonest.The best part of this film is when they show how the shot that hit both the president and Governor Connelly could definitely have done so, because of the fact that the governor's seat was more toward the middle of the car than the president's--that there was nothing magic about that bullet hitting both men...it did not change course in mid-air as the conspiracy people have claimed.That comes early in the film. I advise anyone to switch channels after that portion and not waste their time (like I did) with the rest of this nonsense.

Michael Wehle This film was not worth an hour and a half of my time. There's about 20 minutes of material stretched with endless repetition and reenactments so it'll be suitable for broadcast with commercial interruptions every ten minutes. The constant recitation of what was just said a few minutes before gave me vertigo. If you *must* watch this movie you may want to do so in five or ten minute stretches.Howard Donahue's thesis is an interesting one, I think Donahue did solid work in researching it and Menninger lays it out well in Mortal Error. The Smoking Gun, however, fails to adequately explain Colin McLaren's presence, and what if anything he added to Donahue and Menninger's work.

Ian Watts This is a TV grade documentary that sensationalises an old theory which had been forgotten about, and probably for good reason. Problems with this theory:1. Warren ReportThe theory relies on the autopsy as hard evidence for entry wounds and trajectory. The film basically confirms the highly contentious 'single bullet' theory and also that a lone shooter made the first two shots (not to mention it just seems to be assumed that Lee Harvey Oswald had to have done it) based on this evidence. However, it is well known (and even mentioned in the film) that the Warren Report and autopsy are both unreliable and were both compromised.2. JFK (film)There is only one mention of the film JFK and absolutely no mention of the work of Jim Garrison (on which the film JFK is focused). The work of Jim Garrison is much more thorough and answers a lot more questions than this theory.3. The grassy knollThe film conveniently does not mention that MANY people heard shots and saw smoke from the grassy knoll. This theory dismisses the grassy knoll because there is not entry wound from that direction. But the theory relies on the botched autopsy. The Zapruder film clearly shows JFK move back and to the left from impact (as pointed out in the film JFK) locating the shooter at the grassy knoll (where the best shot is). Something this film does bring to light that Oliver Stone's JFK does not is that people smelt gunpowder on the street. But if you consider the wind blowing back towards the book depository (which is mentioned in this film), then the grassy knoll becomes the prime location for the smell to be coming from.4. Colin McClaren (useless Australian detective)Colin McClaren is nothing more than a film making device to try and reinforce the theory and make it more believable. Basically a case of: insert expert who agrees with everything we want to say. He may have read many documents about the case, but they would not be any documents that you or I couldn't get a hold of, definitely not the calibre of the evidence that Jim Garrison was working with (same applies to Donahue). He didn't meet any of the suspects or associates involved, didn't conduct interviews or have the kind of authority you need to investigate this properly. The film even shows this guy visiting tourist attractions about the assassination. The only 'new' evidence he presents is information that the film hadn't presented to us yet. Most importantly, for a detective, he doesn't ask why! He never discusses motive or what people could be involved, he just simply mirrors what Donahue has already said. 5. Accidental shooter Just when the film gets to its most believable stage and suggests that the secret serviceman Hickey in the car behind may have fired the last shot (which is not all that believable) it makes the bizarre conclusion that Hickey most likely accidentally fired. It is particularly frustrating for someone like myself (I am from Australia) to see many Americans not look at the shooting with a free thinking mind, almost as if it is totally impossible for a US agency to take out its own president, even though it is one of the most logical explanations.... On a side note, this film talks about how the secret service were out late the night before and attributes this as to why Hickey was able to get the shot off. But doesn't it make more sense that they had been enticed to go out in order to lower the guard for the next day? Ultimately this film not only makes a mess of its argument but also fails to explain the important side of the JFK assassination, which is WHY it happened. Look at what was happening at the time, JFK's relationships with government bodies and other groups in the American public, the explanation requires much more than a ballistics analysis. Oliver Stone's JFK gives the best picture so far, watch that instead of this.