JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass

There are really two documentaries in JFK Revisited: one is mostly based on historical documentation available at the National Archives, and one is loosely based on it and is mostly conjecture and speculation. The former is the far more interesting one, in part because it explores facets of the unusual circumstances around JFK's assassination that don't get talked much about that I hear. Using the aforementioned unsealed, unredacted documentation available in the National Archives, Oliver Stone brings up and investigates several key points that refute the Warren Commission: the magic bullet's origin and chain of custody, the autopsy performed and the inconsistencies in it, specifically around Kennedy's brain and skull, Lee Harvey Oswald's military record and ties to the CIA, and JFK's social policies and intentions for Vietnam. Showing the documents, playing interview tapes, and sourcing literally dozens of eyewitnesses, Stone shows a consistent pattern of evidence buried, ignored, or distorted by the Warren Commission to push forward a tidy narrative. And had Stone stuck to this forensic angle all the way through, it would've been even better. Unfortunately, the movie is also riddled with a LOT of speculation and conjecture. Even if the day and age we live in hadn't put an even bigger scarlet letter on conspiracy theories than already existed, JFK Revisited would still end splitting the difference here because of how much reaching Stone does here to look for connections. The section of the movie on Lee Harvey Oswald's connections to the CIA and military record is fascinating, and taking just the forensic evidence from the documents, it paints an alarming picture. If it had stood pat on what is known, yes, it would've left a lot of unanswerable questions hanging out there, but, you know, it's been 60 years, we're never going to have all the answers. But it also makes some staggering leaps in logic to fill in gaps that sound, even without the current climate of "QANON" this and "Pizzagate" that, would sound dubious. And then it gets to the last segment, on JFK himself, his intentions for de-escalating Vietnam by 1964, and several other initiatives towards peaceful relations with other countries, and Stone really leans in heavily on the conjecture. The only documentation at this point exists to back up JFK's plans, but Stone uses it as the foundation to try and tie things together to establish who and why. Does it make sense? Sure, it connects dots, even if the distance between some of the dots is miles. Does it prove anything? It can if you believe hard enough, but it is nothing more than unprovable speculation. There's no doubt that Stone is a good filmmaker, and he does craft a fascinating documentary that's easy to watch, especially if the subject intrigues you like it does me. If I were scoring it by how much I was taken by it, it would definitely be higher, four stars or perhaps four and a half. But I can't discount the fact that the second half of the movie relies on less and less hard evidence and logical questioning of the official record and more on tinfoil hat, corkboard-and-string theorizing as Stone desperately tries to tie everything together to answer the big questions. JFK's assassination and the lies surrounding the Warren Report clearly still resonates with Stone, and he obviously wants to crack the case wide open to heal a wound. Perhaps his own, perhaps the country's. But those who lived through it are dying off, those who participated in it are likely all dead or close to, and that wound is becoming an echo at this point as the Baby Boomers fade away. JFK Revisited shows that this mystery is Stone's white whale, and as close as this brings him to having more answers, he, and we, will never get THE answers.