The Bystander Theory

While the premise of the movie piqued my interest, the movie itself was poorly written, poorly acted, and the cinematography was on a middle school level. This had the feel of an end-of-term project for a film school class. The plot was slow-moving and although the trailer leads you to believe it's all about the JFK assassination, that figures into the storyline in a very small way. The dialogue was subpar and I never once felt like I was "in the story" with the characters. I watched it to the end with one of those "surely it's going to get better any second" attitudes. It did not.

I ran across this when browsing through the "you might also like..." movies list on Amazon Prime. Since I like historical movies, I can see why this popped up. I watched the trailer and decided to pass on it.

A few days later I decided "what the heck." and gave the movie a spin. I'm glad I did. The movie was produced out of the Austin Texas film community. It's definitely low budget, but I think they did a good job.

The main plot of the movie is related to whether or not a particular individual may have been involved in the assassination of JFK. There's a couple interesting, but minor subplots. I think it's worth that viewers stay all the way to the last 10 minutes of the movie, which for me made the whole experience worthwhile.

The movie is actually suitable for young teens and up. I don't think I heard any swear words, and while there is some 'violence," it's relatively mild. The film could actually be used to discuss as a family about how things are not always what they seem.

Really good plot & actors. Kept our attention on this who-did-what-to-whom mystery. It was full of interesting twists & turns of suspects & clues.

Looks like some buddies piled-on to raise the rating of this incredibly rotten movie. Bad acting, bad writing, bad direction and no respect for the intelligence of the viewer. It's as though it was made by high school kids who have no sense of drama and mystery. The one star was an accident.

Zero Stars!!!

My now deceased ex-husband (COVID) and I did the catering for this film. It was our biggest job to date. It was also the start of our divorce, which tanked the company. The director was very nice. All the crew busted their backsides. Don Javier Castillo also had a small role in this film as well as doing the food. He never updated his IMBD and thus does not show. I wish it had done better as this was a joy to work for-even in the cold, even in the winter, out in Lockhart, etc. I remember going into the house to film in different times of the night, the Ambulance, and many of the shoots in Austin and in Lockhart. Thanks for the memories.