blanche-2 It was hard back then to cut out Lee Harvey Oswald's face, paste it on a body holding a gun, and then copy it so it looked like a real photo. Made conspiracy challenging."Executive Action" from 1973 is another film that theorizes how the assassination of JFK went down - this time, it's a bunch of rogue intelligence agents, conservative politicians, greedy businessmen who were worried about President Kennedy's policies on race relations, ending the Vietnam War, and ending the oil depletion allowance. This film's conspiracy is a lot more straightforward than what was posited in JFK, and it really could have gone down this way - with fake Oswalds, three gunmen, and a lot of people getting out of Dodge as soon as it was over. Unfortunately we don't know what happened. This could be close though. Much of the film has actual footage mixed in with film footage. Although the assassination was a re- enactment, it was mixed with actual footage and is still devastating to watch.One thing I've never doubted for one minute is that Ruby was allowed to kill Oswald. Take a look at that scenario. This man supposedly just killed the President and Ruby saunters into the garage, Oswald comes up with a man at either side, walking somewhat slowly - where? Why wasn't the transport right at the door? Never could get over that."Executive Action" is handled in a very naturalistic style; the actors speak conversationally, and it makes what they're planning scarier.The most impressive part of the film is showing that 18 material witnesses to the assassination were dead by 1967. Sobering.Good film, makes you think. Depressing too.

writers_reign If it's a given that infamous international events - like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy - which have never been fully satisfactorily explained are fair game for conspiracy theorists then Executive Action has as much right as any other to its moment in the sun. The first obligation of any film expounding a conspiracy is plausibility and the movie asserts nothing that is beyond the capabilities of a well- to-highly organised group of like-minded people with virtually unlimited funds and access to a network of highly-skilled professional assassins. in saying this I may have underlined just a fraction of the difficulties faced by any group of fanatics who have no use for a democratic form of government. If we put this to one side we are left with some excellent performances. If Robert Ryan is the best actor overall by a country mile - and here I'm basing judgment on a lifetime career - then Burt Lancaster and Will Geer are certainly fit to be mentioned in the same breath. All in all a provocative and entertaining film.

Michael_Elliott Executive Action (1973)** (out of 4) Almost exactly ten years after the assassination of President Kennedy, this film was released to theaters and quickly disappeared due to the controversy it started. This film is meant to show an alternate version of what really happened to Kennedy including there being three gunmen and Lee Harvey Oswald being set up. EXECUTIVE ACTION was made well before Oliver Stone's JFK and while it's always unfair to compare films, that's pretty hard not to do here. There's no question that the Stone film is so much better on every level but this film here remains somewhat interesting even though in the end it's a failure. I think the most interesting thing is how it tries to present itself as a documentary while at the same time admitting that it's not sure anything it's showing really happened. The documentary style includes stock footage being used to help tell its story but this here never really works and in many ways just makes the film seem cheap. I think the biggest problem with the film is that it doesn't know what it wants to do. Yes, it wants to present this alternate theory but in the credits it tells us that it's not certain if this really happened. What made JFK so great (and hated) is that it stood for something and ran with it. EXECUTIVE ACTION doesn't know what it stands for so the film tells us something and never comes close to convincing us of anything. Rich businessmen are afraid blacks, Jews and foreigners are going to take over. They gather up the cash to hire men to kill Kennedy. The performances in the film are good with Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan leading the way. The direction is pretty bland and the laid-back style really doesn't do anyone any favors and especially the viewer. There's really no drama or tension in anything we're watching with the exception being the stock footage showing the countdown and aftermath of the assassination. EXECUTIVE ACTION is certainly worth watching but it's a failed attempt, although you can still give it credit for being ahead of its time.

Lechuguilla The film's thesis is that JFK was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy of wealthy men. In the title sequence, the producers admit that: "much of this film is fiction, much of it is also based on documented historical fact. Did the conspiracy we describe actually exist? We do not know. We merely suggest that it could have existed". In other words, the film's rationale is based on skepticism of the Warren Commission's lone-gunman theory.The three main characters, the villains, are Farrington (Burt Lancaster), Foster (Robert Ryan), and Ferguson (Will Geer), all suits, VIPs, presumably industrialists. But we're never told explicitly who they are or what they represent. Farrington is apparently the mastermind, the one who proposes that "the only possible (successful) scenario is three rifles with triangulated fire".Much of the dialogue consists of background information taken from historical government records related to Oswald and Kennedy's policies, and is therefore largely exposition. It's as if the film is giving viewers a history lesson. As a result, some of the dialogue sounds canned, scholastic, bookish.Casting is adequate. But acting is very, very wooden. Sometimes the cast acts like they're reading their lines off of cue cards.Color cinematography is conventional, though adequate. B&W newsreel footage of JFK, his speeches, the crowds that followed him, his arrival in Dallas, and Oswald permeates the film's plot, and gives the film a factual, semi-documentary look and feel. Some good aerial shots of Dealey Plaza lend authenticity to the story. And that moment when the motorcade enters the kill zone is quite dramatic, absent dialogue and music.Viewers who cling to the lone-gunman theory will hate this film. Viewers who believe in a conspiracy will probably prefer Oliver Stone's more recent, and more compelling film, "JFK" (1991). Back in the 1970s, "Executive Action" was the go-to film for those interested in this historical series of events. Now, the film seems very dated.