Azione esecutiva

I forgot about this movie until I saw it on tape in a cut-out bin. I don't know why it isn't a well-known film, it's very good. The cast is excellent, and the straight-forward tone is unique. There's no judgement provided by the movie makers on the plotters, who are on one hand presented as earnest men doing what they believed to be in the best interest of the country, and on the other as lunatic facists, discussing eliminating "excess population" as if it were an everyday thing.

The purpose of the movie is to educate, it seems, presenting a lot of facts or what are presented to be facts, about Oswald as a patsy. I've read enough to know that not all of what is presented as factual is true (the phone system being cut out in D.C. is a well-known canard, repeated in "JFK"), but the movie uses this approach to lay out a very logical scenario regarding how it could have been done. The political background, and the details of the lapses of the Secret Service are used to good effect.

Finally, there is the presence of JFK himself as a counterpoint throughout the movie. Films of some of his best lines combined with the haunting musical score lend an air of melancholy appropriate to the subject matter, a feeling that is shared by the plotters. There is a quote from Shakespeare given by Robert Ryan that sums it up; ". . . and nothing can we call our own but death . . . let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings." It's one fine moment of many in a well-crafted film.

Interesting and effective film about the JFK assassination released ten years after the tragic event and seventeen years before the far more popular movie "JFK". With hardly any of the controversy of the Oliver Stone & Kevin Costner version.

A number of big oil-men get together in June 1963 to plan to assassinate JFK because his policies, domestic as well as foreign, are a threat to their money and power. The oil men start to put into effect the plan that eventually led to the tragic events of November 22, 1963. Good acting and directing makes this movie grab your attention and see it through it's tragic ending. Even though everyone watching the movie knows what the ending is which is anticlimactic.

What really makes the movie is the build-up and plans that lead to the events that happened in Dallas on that fateful November day. One of the most chilling scenes in the movie is when Farrington, Burt Lancaster, meets up in a diner with Operations Chief played by actor Ed Lauter. Farrington explains to him what he'll get for the "hit" in money and expenses without telling him who is to be "hit". Lauter realizes who it is without Farrington even telling him just by the money and effort involved and tells him surprisingly as well as shockingly "You've just told me who's going to get to hit!": Which is the President of the United State John Fitzgerald Kennedy without even once mentioning him!

Also very effective, besides the scene when the actual assassination takes place, is how the killers planned the "hit" and how they came to the conclusion, after hours and hours of practice shooting on a moving and difficult target, that one shooter doing it would be impossible. The killers instead opted to use at least three riflemen in different places. Unlike the version what we got from the official report by the by now totally discredited, by almost 90% of the American public, Warren Commission of a one man one gun assassin. "Executive Action" was also Robert Ryans last major role.

This movie was made almost twenty years before Oliver Stone's JFK so of course people are going to say that it is trite, inferior and dated. I really enjoyed it though because it is a good thriller. Was the Kennedy assassination planned by a group of disgruntled rich guys who didn't want him to obtain cival rights and pull out of Vietnam? Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan are both superb as the big bosses. They honestly believe they are doing the country a favor by killing Kennedy. They believe they are being true patriots. Its really suspenseful watching the plot unfold and come together. The liberal use of newsreel footage adds to the realism and the scenes leading up to the assassination are particularly good and suspenseful. You can feel your pulse raising as the president rides to his doom. Sadly, Ryan died shortly after this film came out. Also, its fun seeing Will Geer, the lovable Grandfather Walton, in a slightly sinister role.

Executive Action is directed by David Miller and written by Dalton Trumbo, Donald Freed and Mark Lane. It stars Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Will Geer, Gilbert Green and John Anderson. Music is by Randy Edelman and cinematography by Robert Steadman.

In essence it's a film that is offering up a different theory to the Warren Commission's report that ruled Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating John F. Kennedy. Plot has Lancaster and Ryan as shady conspirators who plot the downfall of JFK on that fateful day November 22nd 1963. There's lots of talking, with the actors chewing into the dialogue whilst brooding considerably, their motives explained clearly, the framing of Oswald brought to life, and it rounds up to a triple gunmen scenario. We then get a startling revelation about what befell a number of eyewitnesses from that infamous day.

It's engrossing without being truly riveting, but the cast make it worth time spent. While if you like to buy into the conspiracy theory surrounding the assassination? Then it carries some extra entertainment value. 7/10

David Miller's conspiracy-theory 're-enactment' shows the plotting by several oil-barons and intelligence officers to murder the then- President of the United States John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's pushing of the Civil Rights movement and plans to withdraw U.S. forces from Vietnam proves a threat to these emotionless rich folk, and the removal of Kennedy will benefit their business and, to them, their country. Farrington (Burt Lancaster), a black ops specialist, plans out the assassination in minute detail, with the backing of Foster (Robert Ryan), an oil baron. The action cuts between meetings between these men, the preparations of the gunmen and their target practice, and the recruitment and actions of a Lee Harvey Oswald lookalike.

While not being a fact-based and detailed account like the portrayal of Jim Garrison's investigation in Oliver Stone's excellent JFK (1991), Executive Action makes no claims to be historical fact, but instead a theory of how Kennedy's assassination could have been planned. How much is based on fact I don't know, as I had trouble finding much information about it. While it is certainly very interesting from a conspiracy- theorists point-of-view, the film works far better as a straightforward thriller, and certainly manages to build up plenty of tension regardless of the fact that we know what is going to happen, and that what is being played out in front of us is unlikely to be true.

It's a cold and emotionless film, which made me like it more. Lancaster's Farrington prepares the assassination as if he is preparing a holiday - matter-of-factly, routinely. The terrifying thing is that these men believe that what they are doing is patriotic and for the good of the country. Because of this, the film can be seen as a damning commentary of American values - the pursuit of money and desire for security is held in higher regard than doing the right thing, or equality. The film's low budget is certainly noticeable, and some of the supporting acting is often questionable, but this is a riveting thriller that contains many qualities that made the 70's the greatest era for American cinema.

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