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Prior to 1985, Kevin Costner was probably best known in Hollywood, to the extent that he was known at all, as the corpse of Alex Marshall in Lawrence Kasdan's Baby Boomer drama "The Big Chill." Alex is the friend whose death occasions the gathering of the University of Michigan alums, and whose presence is felt rather than seen. This was not initially by design. Costner's Alex was supposed to appear in flashback, but was completely cut out of the movie by Kasdan when test audiences reacted poorly to meeting the character after ninety-odd minutes of build-up.

When 1985 rolled around, Costner had two films sitting on the shelf, a Canadian crime drama called "The Gunrunner" and Kevin Reynolds' college friendship comedy "Fandango." The former was lousy and would sit on the shelf until 1989, while the latter was a charming misfire that, because it had been disowned by producer Steven Spielberg, was dumped into U.

'JFK' movie with Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison 'JFK' assassination movie: Gripping political drama gives added meaning to 'Rewriting History' If it's an Oliver Stone film, it must be bombastic, sentimental, clunky, and controversial. With the exception of "clunky," JFK is all of the above. It is also riveting, earnest, dishonest, moving, irritating, paranoid, and, more frequently than one might expect, outright brilliant. In sum, Oliver Stone's 1991 political thriller about a determined district attorney's investigation of the assassination of U.S. president John F. Kennedy is a slick piece of propaganda that mostly works both dramatically and cinematically. If only some of the facts hadn't gotten trampled on the way to film illustriousness. With the exception of John Williams' overemphatic score – Oliver Stone films need anything but overemphasis – JFK's technical and artistic details are put in place to extraordinary effect. Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia's editing...