Roswell

Your enjoyment of this film does not depend largely on your acceptance of the story of a crashed alien spacecraft and a government cover up that just does not seem to want to go away. If you believe the narrative, which is based upon Kevin Randle's book UFO crash at Roswell, you will be amply rewarded by a tale that adheres closely to the story, and which treats the subject matter with respect. Even if you think the whole story is stuff and nonsense, you can still enjoy a well made, well cast film that has plenty of atmosphere and crisp direction. Although made for television, Roswell has above average production values which add greatly to the overall tone of the film. Kyle Mclachlan's performance as the perplexed Marcel is fine and some of the set pieces, especially the discovery of the spacecraft wreckage are truly unnerving.

One thing that impressed me a bit about his movie were the scenes of government officials discussing what to do in the wake of Roswell. I consider it highly likely that the coverup was (and still is) motivated primarily by a realization that advanced ETs, if revealed, would devastate existing religious beliefs and political institutions. Also intriguing were the tactics proposed to help the coverup. Bad information was to be leaked through good sources and good information through bad sources. There is fairly good evidence of this. The whole Roswell case is awash with nonsense and disinformation put out by people in touch with the government, notably Corso, Courtney Brown and K.Korff.The latter supports the official line that no ET crash occurred; it was just a balloon array, supposedly difficult to identify because it consisted of 23 balloons. But many people can see through official explanations, so outright denial must be supplemented by disinformation.If they can't prevent some people from believing at least they can try to prevent them from drawing the right conclusions.That is the purpose of disinformation. The truth is that Roswell was a deliberate crash, intended to contact the government without frightening it, as landing intact would have. Note that the aliens don't land and reveal themselves yet, not any more than the government discloses their existence. The two have collaborated since the outset, in 1947.To obscure this, Corso portrayed the aliens as hostile, while the putative briefing document says their intentions are completely unknown. The obvious implication, and purpose of the phoney document, is to discredit the reality: ET-government collaboration.

Interesting, but rarely exciting look at the events surrounding Roswell - a New Mexican town plagued with rumour and notoriety ever since an apparent U.F.O. crashed there in 1947. Of course, this above-par TV movie plays around with the myths and conspiracy theory's put forward by crackpots and officials ever since.

Story is told from Jesse Marcel's (MacLachlan) point of view, a soldier with the U.S. Army back in '47 when the incident happened. Story also takes place in 1977, where Jesse (with his tired wife Kim Griest and sceptical son Doug Wert) is still searching for the truth.

Film uses intriguing and long flashback sequences to explain the events of '47. In these flashbacks, we are told how Jesse is with the team that finds the wreckage of a craft. He takes some of the material home, and finds it is nothing like anything made on Earth, but soon enough, he finds there has been a cover-up, and then finds out he has been made the scapegoat. The army come out with the explanation that is was a weather balloon, various reports go missing and people are unwilling to talk. Jesse's search for the truth starts here. Jump forward to '77 again, and Jesse is regarded as a crackpot as well - with even his own son is beginning to think he should give it up. However, Jesse manages to track down old soldiers, doctors and officials, who 30 years on, may now be willing to speak.

Roswell never really answers the questions it and many others have raised, but it is still an intriguing insight in to a significant incident that still raises arguments today. A top notch cast - including Martin Sheen as a government official - also helps.

(There May Be Spoilers) Story about the crash outside of Roswell New Mexico, in the early summer of 1947, and how it changed the lives of everyone involved in the investigation and handling of the evidence of that incident as well as those who were witnesses to it. Both in the military as well as those of the local population.

The story of "The Incident at Roswell" begins some thirty years later at the 30 year reunion of members of the famed 509th Bomb Wing of the 8th USAAF the only group of bombers who were armed with atomic bombs in the world at that time back in the late 1940's. It was the 509th who's B-29 bombers dropped the two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima & Nagasaki in August 1945 that ended the Second World War.

At the reunion is retired Maj. Jesse Marcel,Kyle MacLachian, who was the intelligence officer of that bomber wing back in 1947 when the Roswell crash happened. Sick and dying Jesse want's to finally get to the bottom of what happened back then and make it public before he dies and tries to get as much information from the soldiers airmen and civilians who were there and knows what happened but have been too afraid to talk about it all these years.

At the time of the crash in July 1947 Jesse and his commanding officer at the air base in Roswell Col. Blanchard, John M. Jackson, came to the conclusion that the debris that was found outside of Roswell at the Brazel ranch was out of this world and very possibly that of an extraterrestrial space craft.

Col. Blanchard released the startling story "US Army Captures a Crashed Flying Saucer outside of Roswell NM" that made headlines all over the world. The next day Gen. Ramey, Matthew Falson, arrived from D.C and told both Col. Blanchard and Maj. Jesse Marcel to change their story from a "flying saucer" to an army weather balloon crashing in the desert outside of Roswell.

Jesse was made out to look like a fool and incompetent with him having to stand before newsmen and news photographers looking like a jerk holding pieces of a weather balloon and making it look like he didn't know the difference between that and an alien spaceship. It also hurt Jesse that both his wife Vy and young son Jesse Jr. (Kim Greist & J.D Daniels), who knew that Jesse was telling the truth, were both made to swallow that made up story and having to see him humiliated in front of the American public and his friends as well.

At the reunion Jesse finally gets to the truth about what happened from many of those who were involved in the investigation and the cover up of the evidence at Roswell, as well as those UFO investigators who were investigating it then in 1977. In the end he dies in peace, Jesse died some nine years later in 1986, feeling that hopefully in the near future the truth would come out and prove, once in for all, that he was right about what happened at Roswell back in 1947.

What really happened at Roswell in 1947 we may never know if we have to count on the US government and military to release the evidence about that incident. In 1994 the US Air Force released a statement that the people who claimed that a space ship crashed at Roswell and that there were a number of alien bodies recovered, one of the aliens was reported to have survived, mistook that for the US Air force's Operation Mogul. Mogul had high altitude balloons drop dummies in parachutes to see if humans can survive those high parachutes drops in the future.

The paper trail totally disputes that claim since Operation Mogul was conducted in the early to mid 1950's years after "The Roswell Incident" was said to have taken place. In fact it's "The Roswell Incident", not Operation Mogul, that's supported by the newspapers magazines radio and television reports at that time in the fateful summer of 1947. The Then Secretary of Defense James Vincent Forrestal, Eugune Roche, was reported to have had a major hand in the Roswell Investagation back in 1947 that at the time was classified above Top Secret by the newly formed CIA. Within two years Forrestal lost his mind and was committed to the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington D.C after suffering a severe mental breakdown. Forrestal later fell or jumped out of his 16th floor hospital room window to his death in the early morning hours of May 22, 1949. Was it what he saw at Roswell, and forced to keep silent about it, that drove him to kill himself?

What exactly did happened outside of Roswell in the summer of 1947? The American people as well as the world may never know. What's positive about the "Incident at Roswell" is that those in charge of finding out what happened, then as well as now, will never let it see the light of day. Those in charge will continue to cover up the "Roswell Incident" and keep it covered up for as long as they have the power and authority to do so. And nothing short of a massive landing of alien space crafts in all the major capitals and cities on earth, to show the people on earth that they in fact do exist and are real, will finally make the US Government reveal what really happened at Roswell almost sixty years ago.

Kyle MacLachlan may be the star of this movie but Dwight Yoakam steals the show with his portrayal of Mac Brazel. If you're not familiar with the Roswell Incident (who isn't by now?) this movie will clue you in quickly and accurately without having to read your way through a stack of books on the subject. If you're already a believer, this movie will quickly become on of your favorites. It is a docu-drama. DOCU...DRAMA - of course some of the acting is melo-dramatic - it's a made-for-TV movie about the crash of an alien spaceship...hello.... That aside - the movie is true to its subject matter and the acting is not the horror show some have claimed. I went to film school (Columbia) and believe me, compared to what I've seen - this is A+++. They are also Hollyweird actors, not schlocks so how bad can it be? I won't restate the plot here but I wanted to refute the few 'this is horrible!' posts out there. It's not horrible and it's very informative. Unlike others, I also found it suspenseful. The suspense doesn't come directly from the action but from slowly uncovering what happened right along with Jesse himself.

See it - you won't regret it.