Ruby

The reason why Jack Ruby Killed Lee Harvey Oswald was had he not done so he would have been killed himself. Sam Giancana had put Ruby in charge of the JFK assassination, and part of the plan was for Officer Tippett to kill Oswald as he was trying to escape. That didn't happen, for reasons unknown, so Ruby had to finish the job himself.

The real question is how was Jack Ruby able to walk right up to the most heavily guarded man in America, guarded as he was by Secret Service, FBI, CIA, Texas State Troopers, and Dallas Police, and shoot him at point blank range. That alone should tell you that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.

The government would tell you that Ruby acted alone, for reasons of grief and rage, etc, but they don't want you to know the truth. They don't think we could handle the truth. They don't want us to know that JFK and his father made a deal with Sam Giancana to get elected and, once elected, the Kennedys reneged on their end of the deal.

By the way, did you know that Lee Harvey Oswald was raised by his uncle in New Orleans, who was a bookie, and did you know that in 1963 all bookmakers worked for the mob? Why would the New Orleans District Attorney (Garrison) get involved in a crime that took place in Dallas? It is all related.

Did you know that several weeks after the JFK assassination the Texas State Attorney General held a press conference and announced that Oswald worked for the CIA? Did you know that Oswald attended Naval Intelligence School, and shortly thereafter he went to Russia, officially as a US dissenter, but more likely as a spy?

I did not expect much of this movie, but as a (none too serious) collector of Americana I was pleasantly surprised. The movie Ruby reminded me most of – and which might have inspired the script – is John Cassavete's Killing of a Chinese Bookie – which, in turn, might have been inspired by the life and times of the real Ruby. The biopic Hoffa, scripted by David Mamet, also comes to mind.

The one problem this movie seems to have is that it sits uncomfortably between mainstream cinema and art-house material. This becomes most apparent in the bombastic, completely unsuitable musical score which wants to make some kind of Godfather out of Ruby. But for the rest, this movie is well worth some time of the viewers attention.

It opens with a frontal shot of Ruby's face. He starts talking: „You're sitting somewhere in a motel room, alone and miserable, and the telephone starts ringing". This introduction of a strip act in his club pretty accurately describes Ruby's circumstances. He is a kind of a displaced person who does not seem to belong anywhere, waiting for a call. His activities seem pretty incoherent, his grasp of what is happening around him uncertain. He is proud to be a member of the show business industry, where dreams come true.

Had this movie been less mainstream, I imagine that many scenes concerning the events before the assassination of the President would have had a more dreamlike atmosphere. I would like to believe that a lot of what is going on in the movie is going on uniquely in Ruby's head, the head of a lonely man who is about to loose his sanity and strives to gain a certain presence, a certain stature. The script accommodates such a viewpoint which probably comes closest to Ruby's motives for shooting the man who shot the President.

The acting is mostly very good. Danny Aiello's and Sherilyn Fenn's performances were brilliant, the good chemistry between them makes the relationship between Ruby and his „dream woman" special and heartwarming. It also defines Ruby as someone who cares, probably another motive for his action. I am a big fan of Marc Lawrence who is absolutely terrific as the head mobster. He does not speak more than four or five sentences and yet his presence is awesome. The assassination of the President is reenacted with subtlety and tact – much better than in Stone's JFK. I found the casual way in which the real locations in Dallas were introduced absolutely stunning. The editing between TV stock material and specially filmed details is masterful.

Danny Aiello's performance as the lowlife nightclub owner and murderer of supposed assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby was sometimes serious, and oftentimes comical. This flick is almost like a seriocomic biography of Jack Ruby. Heck, some of the characters in this movie didn't even exist (i.e. Candy Cane).

The best character in this was Maxwell played by Arliss Howard. The scenes and dailogue were both funny and seriously violent that if you would or someone you know would want to rent this movie, you couldn't help but chuckle, or maybe you would take it seriously. All in all, it's still a good movie about the J.F.K. Assassination and the life and times of Jack Ruby.

Don't rent this if you're in the mood for a really serious drama. What I liked about it was that it was comical, a drama, good, bad, and ridiculous in it's own way. And I've always liked movies that are like this one. But don't take my word for it. See it for yourself. :)

I think the trouble with making a movie, like this, that has ties with actual events, leads critics to over analyze the factuality's of the movie and lose sight of the purpose of the movie....... To Entertain.

This is "Not a Documentary".

I came to this movie from a perspective of having no idea who Jack Ruby was, as I have no interest in American political history, so I treated this as just a movie. Although, I do like gangster type movies eg. "The Untouchables" and found this to be in a similar police/criminals vein.

Knowing Sherilyn Fenn and having a good regard for Danny Aiello's acting style, I thought this would be a good movie and I wasn't disappointed. Danny brings a strong, stable almost calming effect to this movie, while Sherilyn brings a simple cuteness and innocence, yet with a driving ambition and I think they work well together. The thing I didn't really like was the CIA character, just a bit far fetched for me.

Was it ever destined to win an Academy Award?... hmmm... not likely, but I found it to be a good, solid, entertaining movie and worth the dollar I spent on the DVD at the discount shop. Anyone who gives this less than three stars is in for a rude shock because there are a lot worse movies than this out there.

When Oliver Stone decided to make his controversial "JFK" he knew his film would be debated since he was presenting countless challenges on facts concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. What Oliver couldn't predict was the appearance of films that followed his conspiracy theories on the same subject, although none of these films, including "Ruby", caused impact on anything. More than that, none of these films had the same material quality "JFK" had, a film with so much to handle in terms of characters and situations that never gets boring or complicated.

Now, John Mackenzie's "Ruby" is a wildly confusing film focused on Jack Ruby, the mysterious nightclub owner who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who (some say) shot Kennedy in Dallas, in 1963. Ruby, played with some good effort by Danny Aiello, is presented as someone similar like Oswald, a ingenuous patsy who joined the wrong people (the Mafia) for one cause and for reasons unknown was betrayed by his so-called friends who opted for killing the president. The movie gets even deeper by showing that Ruby was some sort of a informant for the government pretending to be part of the Mafia, meeting guys like Gambini and other powerful mobsters, who were plotting to kill Fidel Castro but for some reason they changed planes and decided to take Kennedy out of the picture. To make things worst, the movie chooses to include a fictional character, the stripper Candy Cane (Sherilyn Fenn) who works for Ruby, and in terms of script she's a composition between Marilyn Monroe, Ruby's girlfriend and a woman who had affairs with mobsters and even Kennedy. We hardly know who is she in the picture and how important she is besides being the wildest thing on Jack's club. What about the mysterious Maxwell (played by Arliss Howard, very good here)? Who was that guy? Part of CIA? Mafia? He always bothers Ruby but never reveals himself except the original planning about dealing with Castro. The connections between characters and situations might have worked in real life but in the film it fails at horrible levels, to the point of unbelievable.

Compared with "JFK" this film is easy to follow but it never achieves greatness; it doesn't shine a light to new facts on Kennedy's and Oswald's murders; it can only confuses with more and more things. Structurally speaking, the whole film is a mess, slow at the beginning and very rushed towards the ending and that combination ruined the suspense and made a boring drama who had some good moments. The lamest of contradictions presented was the fact of Ruby being a patriotic man, who deals with the Mafia, a bad job for his country and at the same time cries out loud when he finally realizes his own people will kill the President. It's okay to do illegal things, not pay taxes and the government but you can't kill this nation's leader.

It's quite watchable but when you analyzes the material the director had in the hands you know he could have done better than this. 5/10