This political thriller purports to provide an alternative to the Warren Commission's report that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Directed by David Miller, it features a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo that was based on the story by Donald Freed and Mark Lane's novel Rush to Judgment.It stars Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan (among others) as wealthy conspirators that want to eliminate the POTUS before he and the rest of the Kennedy clan - they foresee the White House being occupied by JFK, then Robert followed by Teddy through 1984 - can implement their agenda, which would change the United States of America into an intolerable country for them.Actual newsreel footage is used to chronicle the President's steps: a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, the promise of equal rights for Negroes (Kennedy's words), and military withdrawal from Vietnam, which the conspirators fear would allow the Communists to take over Asia.The actions finally convince a Southerner (played by Will Geer) to fund the assassination plot which, according to the film, included three gunmen (one behind a fence on a grassy knoll), and making a patsy out of Oswald, who was merely a Texas School Book Depository employee when the shots rang out near Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas at half past noon on that fateful day.After Jack Ruby kills Oswald, the film's denouement includes Ryan receiving a phone call that Lancaster's character has died, then pictures of several other eyewitnesses (who were reportedly killed or died mysteriously in subsequent years) are shown.A conspiracy theorist's delight!

As an exercise in creating a provocative perspective on the Kennedy assassination, Executive Action is successful. Basically it is as if you would take some time to listen to a conspiracy theorist able to lay out his view without too many vague allegations. Above all it is very interesting as a reflection on conspiracies (groupthink and escalating violence).It is futile because it tries too hard to fill in the blanks so it deliberately stems from a clever thought-provoking mockumentary to a crazy conspiracy movie. If you know little about the facts it holds up pretty well, which is dangerous as far as conspiracy theorists are dangerous with their loose thinking. If you want to challenge it, there is plenty of room, yet that would be futile too.The main point IMHO is that Executive Action has it all wrong as a movie. A conspiracy movie cannot be told from the perspective of the masterminds. It is usually told from the external perspective of someone who suspects it and uncovers part of it, or it can be told from someone that is only a pawn in the conspiracy. On the contrary if all the conspiracy is laid out as a clear plan with motivations also made heavily clear, where is the mystery? The tension between what we think we know and what we crave to know?No wonder Executive Action bombed in 1973, failing both as a movie and as an open for discussion account of events from 10 years back.

David Miller directed this speculative conspiracy film dealing with the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy on Nov.22,1963, which this film theorizes was a combination of government and business interests, threatened by the social change and end of the Vietnamese war they feared would lead to disaster. Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Will Gear, John Anderson, and Ed Lauter round out the cast of conspirators. Despite the explosive nature of this material(explored far better in later film "JFK") this film is inexplicably tame, presented in a coldly indifferent fashion most unsuited to the premise. Good cast keeps you interested, but film is ultimately a misfire.

Although this film has been eclipsed by Oliver Stone's JFK, Executive Action points to an alternative view of the Kennedy Assassination. Names are definitely changed to protect the innocent or the falsely accused depending on your point of view.The conspiracy is hatched in the study of Robert Ryan who is an unnamed right-wing millionaire concerned about the direction of policy the Kennedy administration is taking. Three issues are of concern, the negotiations for a nuclear test ban treaty with the Russians, the growing civil rights movement which Kennedy was now embracing, and the Vietnam War. Another of the concerned citizens is Will Geer playing your stereotypical right-wing oil millionaire. He's concerned about the oil depletion allowance that has made him the super rich guy that he is. Geer's character is clearly based on H.L. Hunt.Burt Lancaster is the operations guy, he's got a history of black ops for the government and for private citizens like Geer. He puts together the shooters and he's got a plan to set up a patsy in Lee Harvey Oswald.Most people in the USA have a casual familiarity with the bare-bones facts of the Kennedy Assassination so the film will come in for its share of criticism. The film is based on a book by Mark Lane who is a Kennedy Assassination specialist and left-wing gadfly. That in and of itself is guaranteed to give the film its detractors.At least in two areas the assassination failed to do what it set out to accomplish. Kennedy become a martyr and the Texas and Southern Vice President who succeeded him, Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the civil rights and voting rights legislation that changed America forever. The nuclear test ban treaty was never abrogated, no one ever raised the possibility.JFK's demise never accomplished what they wanted, preservation of their little right-wing world. As for the film, Executive Action gives a plausible theory of the assassination, but nothing more.