To begin with, I am so positive that I wrote and submitted a review right after I watched this film but now I cannot find it here. Has anyone else ever had this problem? Moving on...I never got a chance to see this film in the theater, it came and went so fast. I had to watch it on blu ray and I must say it is a very well constructed film, it really has the feel of transporting you to 1963 while watching it which is a feat that not every film can accomplish. The attention to detail is very accurate, in MOST cases but there are some glaring factual mistakes, some that can be written off as a money saving problem considering it was not a high budgeted film but there some that there is no excuse for. These MAY be considered SPOILER ALERTS if any viewer has no idea about common history. 1. There is no tent over Oswald's grave. 2. The coffin was not correct, there were no pre-made letters that were attached to the top of the coffin lid but since there was no Close-up shown I can dismiss this as a cost saving device by the production. 3. When Zapruder is filming the assassination, he is in the correct spot but he is alone on the pedestal when in fact his secretary was standing behind him and holding him steady. This is a bonehead 101 mistake that there is NO excuse for. If the director, who also wrote the script, made this amateur blunder then I would have hoped that Paul Giamatti being a consummate actor and researched his role thoroughly (I can only assume here) would have pointed this out during filming. This is not a detail of conjecture, it can be justified by photos and both of their own testimonies. No excuse for this one. 4. This one is more of a murky detail depending on how you sway but when the body of JFK is being wheeled into Parkland, the top and side of his head can clearly be seen to be "fully intact" instead of blown out with brain matter falling out as "some" autopsy photos show. I can see how the Producers wanted to keep the "gruesome" aspect out of a theatrical release for a more General rating BUT I would have thought that the director would have wanted to be more historically correct with the eventual video release and shoot 2 versions of this scene. But, having listened to the director commentary track he seems pretty "in control" of the production so the blame should be laid at his feet. 5. This can be put into the "latter stage of time table of events". I am not sure if Kennedy's underpants were left on while in Parkland, this could be accurate, but once his body arrived at Bethesda Naval Hospital he was nude and inside a slate gray body bag as witnessed by one of the attendants who handled the body for that "autopsy". When you do a film with as much important historical context as this subject, you set yourself up when you get the "nit-pick" details wrong. It is just the way it is.

A relatively straight-forward telling of a historical event with lots of blood and gore. John F. Kennedy apparently had so much blood in his body that even after so much of it must have spilled in the limousine, there was still enough left over to completely soak every doctor's shirt and cover every person's hands within a 20-foot radius of the ER. Yes, this director, Peter Landesman, sure does like gore. And yet, he was strangely demure about showing the moment of JFK's assassination (all of that was accomplished through reaction shots).The plus of this movie is its highlighting of details that folks might never consider, like when the Dallas medical examiner wouldn't allow JFK's body to leave the hospital because he was a murder victim, or that L. H. Oswald's mother thought her son was an agent of the US government.These "real life" details occasionally got a bit dubious though, I thought, like when one secret service agent took out a hack-saw and cut away a section of Airforce One's fuselage to allow JFK's coffin in. Really? Is an airplane so easily cut? If so, would it still be safe to fly in? Oh well, Hollywood, right? Or, maybe this really happened. That's the problem with biopics, it's hard to tell where reality leaves off and convenient creativity begins.All in all, Parkland was a well-made period piece where little details take center stage. Mildly recommended.p.s. Hello again Jackie Earle Haley. Kelly from the Bad News Bears is in everything these days! Good for you, man.

"Parkland" from 2013 is exceptional for telling the story of President Kennedy's assassination in Dallas in a simple yet extraordinary way, showing us the impact it had on the lives of those involved in it, people thrust into an historic situation.The emotional effect the assassination had on those involved makes Parkland a sad, touching story, with no conspiracy theories, just families, secret service, and hospital workers attempting to absorb what they witnessed. From the near-hysteria of Agent Forrest Sorels when he screams that the Secret Service had failed to protect the President, the dazed Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti) with a bombshell in his hand, the intent of Dr. Carrico (Zach Efron), who refused to stop pounding the chest of the President to make his heart start, to Mrs. Kennedy (Kat Steffens) taking off her wedding ring and putting it on her husband's finger, the panicked ripping apart of the plane so the hearse would fit - the film is loaded with moments like these.I did wonder about a few things. The first is I've always believed there was no real attempt to protect Oswald from being shot - just thought I'd bring that up. Certainly the police were aware that there might be an attempt, and they let Jack Ruby walk right up to him. Contrast that with the striking scene of taking Lyndon Johnson to the plane -- surrounded by secret service, his head pushed down as they ran to the car, ran to the plane. Big difference.The second thing I wondered about - this is regarding accuracy - was the discussion in the hospital about the President's blood type. I thought, and I might be wrong, that when the President or First Lady travels, blood of their type is put aside for them at a hospital in a city where they will be.The second thing I wondered about is everyone calling Mrs. Kennedy "Jackie." Certainly people who had a more formal relationship with her referred to her as Mrs. Kennedy.A final thought - Zapruder sold the film to Life magazine because he admired the publication and, according to this movie, asked that the kill shot frame be omitted. That may or may not be so - another side of it is that the publisher of Life had CIA connections and was not trusted by the FBI. Don't know. I do know that Zapruder gave $25,000 to the widow of the police officer Oswald shot, that the film was sold back to him for $1, and that he donated the copyright to the Dealey Plaza Museum. Just think, if this assassination happened today, how many i-phones the FBI would have collected, and how many news programs would have had access to footage that very afternoon.A great companion piece to this is "Four Days in November," which shows footage of the President, Mrs. Kennedy, and the Johnsons on their trip to Texas. In its own way it's as emotional for the audience, watching President Kennedy with his characteristic humor, charisma, and charm giving a speech, Mrs. Kennedy speaking Spanish -- when we know what's coming.For those who remember the assassination, Parkland will be especially powerful. For those who don't, the movie makes you feel as if you are there.

I fear films like this, because I know if anyone ever makes one well enough, I might end up hating American cinema forever. Thankfully, I found this film to be executed poorly enough that I can breathe a sigh of relief."Parkland" is a super-somber, ponderous marathon of long silences between sparse dialog delivered with exaggerated whisper. Abrupt and remarkably volatile tantrums also occur, but can all but be counted with the fingers on one hand.In such ultra-slow motion, out comes a one-dimensional bore of a narrative that never pleads with conspiracy theorists to give up their presumably errant beliefs, but pretends no controversy ever existed in the first place. Perhaps the dubious design is to wear the theorists down until saliva drips from their gaping mouths.Otherwise superb actors (Thornton, Giamatti, Harden, and Efron) are lost among a generally weak cast. James Newton Howard adds a snail's-pace music soundtrack resembling a weeping choir that makes Brian Eno's "Music For Airports" sound like a frenetic, dizzying étude.But that's not the point. Those of us who have actually read Vincent Bugliosi's 1700-page tome know that the main purpose here is to debunk conspiracy theories (it is titled "Reclaiming History," after all). Unfortunately, even admiring Bugliosi's skills as a prosecutor and zealous advocate do not overcome the painful reality that he makes a horrifically misguided claim to also being an historian. He is no such thing.Those who know the conspiracy-friendly film "Kill the Messenger" also might be shocked to learn that its same screenwriter and producer also wrote and directed "Parkland." Other familiar names, including actors Tom Hanks and Bill Paxton, flesh out a rather lengthy list of producers.We have all seen the Zapruder film, which includes depiction of a large piece of JFK's scalp being torn almost completely off (footage even included in this film), so why during the opening do we see a completely intact head as JFK's body is being rolled into Parkland Memorial Hospital on a stretcher? Why so much effort to portray Agent Hosty's acts as merely a cover-up of ineptitude without even the hint of the controversy that raged in the newspapers that Oswald was supposed to have been an FBI informant and even kept Hosty's name in his address book? The only hint that Oswald might have been a trained agent provocateur (explaining his defection to the USSR and public displays of over-the-top Marxism) come from his mother, who is portrayed as a sociopath, with grief uncharacteristically emerging only at the end during her son's funeral. If only Robert Oswald had a crystal ball when scolding his brother for being such a bad father—in real life, the older daughter, Rachel Oswald Porter, graduated as the valedictorian of the University of Texas.Follow this moping maze of darkness if you must, but just for fun, read Mark Antony's famous soliloquy when it's all finished. This is not the last word.