(Fun fact: For the sake of dignity, supervising physician Charles James Carrico evidently ordered that they leave Kennedy's boxer shorts on while trying to resuscitate him.) Instead, we get a bizarre mix of Oscar winners and softball actors, as jittery handheld cameras find Marcia Gay Harden working alongside 'High School Musical' heartthrob Zac Efron in the ER where doctors tried to save the president's life. Kennedy,' a solid piece of reportage by the author (and prosecuting attorney) behind 'Helter Skelter,' 'Parkland' would have been considerably easier to stomach in documentary form. But mostly, it feels like witnessing someone play a cruel jack-in-the-box trick on dozens of innocent bystanders, watching the belief in humanity fade from one face after another, as when Jackie (Kat Steffens) learns that her husband is dead, or Oswald's brother Robert (James Badge Dale) hears the news on the radio.īased on the first 700 or so pages of Vincent Bugliosi's 'Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Offers a reverse-shot on history, depicting the little people pulled into the maelstrom of confusion that surrounded Kennedy's killing.
