Peter Landsman’s ensemble drama “Parkland,” about President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, left me both underwhelmed and frustrated — underwhelmed because it’s nothing more than a basic history lesson about the event, and frustrated because two of its many characters could have had their own movie, both of which would have been far more interesting than this one.
Based on Vincent Bugliosi’s book “Four Days in November,” the movie begins in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Everyone is going about their daily routines, but there’s an aura of excitement in the air as Air Force One touches down and the president (along with his wife) begins riding around town. “Parkland” proceeds to recount the tragic event and the three days that followed from the perspectives of multiple people.
There are the doctors at Parkland hospital ( Zac Efron and Colin Hanks) who try to revive the president. Then there is Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti), the ordinary nobody whose home movie documented the assassination, along with the Dallas chief of Secret Service (Billy Bob Thornton). Then there’s the FBI as they search for the assassin and realize that they just missed him. And, finally, JFK’s security team and Robert Oswald (James Badge Dale), the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald.
On paper, this sounds solid, and I’m sure Bugliosi’s book (from which Landsman adapted the screenplay) is an interesting read, but Landsman’s film does a lot of restating the obvious. It doesn’t really have anything new to say about the event.
The film is fast-paced and shot (by Barry Ackroyd) in cinema verite style, but it still feels flat and clinical. The film doesn’t create much tension or excitement on its own. Like Paul Greengrass’ 9/11 drama “United 93,” it never transcends “the true-life event” that it recounts.
Worst of all, because the picture includes multiple perspectives and has a relatively short running time (93 minutes), it fails to explore any of the characters in any great depth. We’re left with a well-made but skin-deep dramatization of those four turbulent days in November that is more fit for the History Channel than for a theatrical movie.
The acting is fine for the most part: No one is flat-out terrible, but because none of the characters are given enough time to blossom, none of the acting is outstanding, either.
The two most interesting characters in the entire movie were Zapruder and Robert Oswald — I kept thinking about how both of them could have benefited from having their own movie, as they both provide a fresh perspective to the event. Just because of one little home video, Zapruder’s life was forever altered, and he never could handle it. He was, after all, just another excited JFK supporter eager to catch a glimpse of the president.
As for Oswald? Well, imagine being the brother of the JFK assassin. There’s so much potential with these guys, but since there so many other characters, they remain undeveloped.
“Parkland” is made with good intentions and one would think that a multi-angled account of the JFK assassination would be compelling. But by trying to tell such a big story in such little time, Landsman ends up telling us very little that we don’t know. The movie should have been longer, perhaps even a miniseries, but I still think Landsman’s best bet would have been making a movie about just Zapruder or Robert Oswald.
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