Ruby

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.

John Mackenzie directed this speculative drama that stars Danny Aiello as Jack Ruby, the man who fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald, and the events that led him there, where he was the owner of a Dallas strip club who hires popular headliner Candy Cane(played by Sherilyn Fenn) who ends up under the wing of the mafia, and becomes a mistress of President Kennedy. Ruby does favors for the mafia while simultaneously informing on them for the FBI, and eventually is used by a mysterious hit man for either the CIA or Mafia to kill Oswald, though he suspects he's as much a patsy as Oswald seems to be. David Duchovny co-stars as police officer Tibbet. Despite a good performance by Aiello, film is a pale knockoff of the far superior "JFK". Not bad, but entirely forgettable.

Disappointing film about Jack Ruby, the man who gunned down Lee Harvey Oswald with Aiello giving his all for the title character, but even his talents cannot save the tedious script.

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

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. :)