Executive Action

A dramatization about how the high level covert conspirators in the JFK assassination might have planned , schemed and plotted the magnicide , being based on the records , data , Comission Warren's evidences , facts of the case and especulative proposition . It joins a group of greedy intelligence agents, free-lance assassins , ultra-conservative politicians and wealthy people with corrupt interests , all of them become increasingly alarmed at President Kennedy's policies, including his view points on race relations, winding down the Vietnam War, and finishing the oil depletion allowance . As a small group of like minded individuals join to devise a strategy for Kennedy not to be reelected. Among the group, the lead conspirator, Robert Foster (Robert Ryan) , presumably a Texas oil baron . He and the others are trying to convince , a wealthy right wing American businessman named Ferguson (Will Geer), being the chief strategist James Farrington (Burt Lancaster) , who has done similar work for Ferguson before . Farrington's main idea: kill the President sometime before the election. They decide to eliminate him through an "executive action" utilizing three teams of well-trained snipers during JFK's visit to Dallas and place the blame on supposed CIA operative Lee Harvey Oswald as the lone assassin and being subsequently murdered by Rudy . Their plan would have the starting point of past assassinations and assassination attempts of Presidents as McKinley , Garfield and Theodore Roosevelt , the latter was a failed attempt , all those precedents which were carried out by a lone citizen standing on his own principle , and without experience in military or revolutionary strategy . Their Goal...Assassination. November 22, 1963...Accomplished!The schemers... the plotters... and the hush men behind the assassination of an American president. Assassination conspiracy? The possibility is frightening. To this day, they remain somewhere among us... these people responsible for November 22, 1963!.The way it could have happened . Probably the most controversial film of our time.

This forceful and speculation movie is based on Mark Lane's book : ¨Rush to judgement¨ and based on conspiracy theories and the engaging evidences of the Warren Commission refused to hear , the picture at the same time uses stock footage , acting re-enacting and on-the-record facts as the framework developing the action , as it features a riveting look at possible reasons for the assassination of Head of State JFK and attempting to avoid the possibility of liberally-minded Kennedy's reelection in 1964. Providing a different look at the happenings leading to the magnicide in which millionaire and unscrupulously greedy businessmen pay professional spies to kill John Fitzgerald Kennedy . This is compelling and fascinating dramatic hypothesis constructed by the great writer Dalton Trumbo and investigator Mark Lane . Including a thoughtful and provoking dialogue as protagonists argueing the dark means of eliminating "excess population" as if it were an everyday thing. The conspiracy would be meticulously thought out, and exactly executed by a motley reunion of varied people : rogue intelligence agents, right-wing politicians, ambitious capitalists , but on the surface be made to look like a lone crazed gunman executed the assassination on his own, that patsy of a person chosen ultimately being a Communist sympathizer named Lee Harvey Oswald who would have no idea of the actual plot . This plausible enough attempt to weld a political thriller is made in Costa Gavras style , in fact producer Edward Lewis was responsible of financing , nine years later , Costa Gavras' Hollywood debut : ¨Missing¨ with Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek . Main cast give fine acting as Robert Ryan , Burt Lancaster , Will Geer ; along with a good support cast with brief appearances from Ed Lauter , John Anderon , Richard Bull , Paul Carr , Rutanya Alda, Lloyd Gough , Joaquín Martínez , Dick Miller , among others .

It contains an atmospheric and adequate cinematography by Robert Steadman . As well as impressive and thrilling musical score by Randy Edelman . This speculative agitprop picture was compellingly directed by David Miller .Filmmaker David Miller was a good professional , a fine craftsman who made a few and nice films , and some of them were successful enough . He directed all kinds of genres , such as : ¨Bittersweet Love¨ , ¨Executive action¨ , ¨Heroes¨ , ¨Hammerhead¨ , ¨Captain Newman¨ , ¨Back Street¨, ¨Midnight lace¨ , ¨Happy anniversary¨ , ¨Billy the Kid¨ , ¨The story of Esther Costello¨ . Being his two greatest hits : ¨Executive action¨ and this ¨Lonely are the brave¨ . Rating : 7.5/10 . Better than average . Worthwhile seeing . Essential and indispensable watching for political film lovers .

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.

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.

Entertaining and interesting film which puts forward a seemingly plausible theory as to why JFK was assassinated.

The main thought seems to be that President Kennedy's ideas in regard to nuclear disarmament, racial equality and ensuring a square deal for America's most lowly paid workers were just too radical as far as the country's hard line conservatives were concerned.

Appears to have been generally well researched and non sensationalist.

However, it's a fair criticism to note that some of the finer points of period detail are slightly shaky. For example, some of the hairstyles and fashions definitely belong to the '70s rather than the early '60s. We have a '61 Chevy coupe with a tattered rear back seat which has obviously been parched by a decade of sun exposure. But these are minor points.

Don't worry too much about nit picking as this movie is most certainly well worth a look.