dex14

Peter Landesman adapted the Parkland screenplay from the book Four Days In November by Vincent Bugliosi, and makes his helming debut with the picture. The story recounts the events at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Zac Efron, Marcia Gay Harden, Billy Bob Thornton, Jacki Weaver, Paul Giamatti, Tom Welling, Mark Duplass, James Badge Dale and Colin Hanks star. The film world premieres at the Venice Film Festival which begins next week. Exclusive Releasing has set a September 20 U.S. release.


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Superman07

Finally watched the trailer for this. Looks like it could be good with some intense performances. Seems to be very under the radar.

Jack Straw

Looks interesting, though I wonder how much of it is pure fiction in order to get butts in theater seats.

Dan

I'm seeing this tonight at my local film festival. A friend saw it in Toronto and said it was great.

Dan

So, Parkland was good, but not great. To me, it felt like a really long one-act film. It was tense, and the performances were mostly excellent... I just didn't feel like there was any sort of climax. Since we all know 'what happens,' there's not much to get really excited about here.

writer106

I watched this earlier today and did some research afterwards. It seems a good portion of the movie was pretty accurate as the screenplay was based on a book by Vincent Bugliosi.

Jack Straw

I watched it and concur with Dan's comment about the direction of the movie. Also, it seemed too short (run time 93 mins). I wish some additional scenes had been added to fill out the story a bit. I'm looking forward to watching "Killing Kennedy" tonight on Nat'l Geographic channel.

mickey65

I just watched this on DVD today and really liked it. I liked seeing all the "background" stuff that went on in regards to Kennedy's death (ER scenes, the folks involved and what went on) - even down to Oswald's funeral.

Drexl

I don't know. The same could be said for many biopics, historical films and documentaries, plus anything based on existing source material like books. I think it's more about the journey than the destination, and I often find these kinds of films interesting because they look at known events from a different perspective.

Anyway, from the synopsis it sounds a lot like that Bobby movie (about RFK's assassination) that Emilio Estevez directed. Was it like that?

writer106

Bobby focused more on the hopes on people had for RFK possibly becoming president. Parkland is a bit different. The scenes before the shots are fired are basically about people at the hospital and around Dallas going about their day while knowing Kennedy is in town. Abraham Zapruder's story is featured quite a bit in the movie as well the aftermath on Oswald's family.

Shannon Nutt

PARKLAND was originally supposed to be an HBO mini-series debunking conspiracy theories. HBO passed on the project and producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman decided instead to go with a smaller story just focusing on the immediate events following the assassination.

The movie still "feels" like one of those made-for-HBO films instead of a full-blown theatrical release. It's worth a rental, but it's not something you'll want to watch more than once. The most interesting part of PARKLAND is seeing how Oswald's older brother (played by James Badge Dale) dealt with the events.

GoldenJCJ

Just watched this tonight. I thought it was very good. I enjoyed seeing some of the aspects surrounding the immediate aftermath of the JFK assassination that hasn't gotten a lot of attention before. Seeing how the hospital staff, the Secret Service, Abe Zapruder, and Oswald's brother react to the assassination was very interesting.

Wonderful performances by the cast, and what a cast it was; one of the most star studded films I've seen in quite some time. I agree with Shannon Nutt that it felt a lot like an HBO Original film but it was still very good.