les6969 The story is good and certainly made me think about maybe why and by whom John and Bobby Kennedy as well as Marilyn Monroe were killed! But that's a side point. Not a bad film but the casting director needs to be shot! Don Cheadle, as Sammy Davis is probably the most convincing and I am sure it was no easy task to capture the highly talented Mr Davis Jr, especially the dancing. The racism and the obvious pain of Sammy really came through. Angus MacFadyen's Lawford is not too bad and is second to Don Cheadle's performance. From there the casting goes really off....Joe Mantegna captures something of Dean Martin's character but is not as handsome or charming enough. William L. Petersen, looks and sounds nothing like JFK and portrays him as a shallow, weak character.Then we come to the worst casting in the whole film. Ray Liotta looks not even close to Sinatra, he is much too tall, and even worse he fails to carry himself like him and his speaking voice is just awful, he sounds like a squeaky teenager most of the time. this would not be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that he is the main character in this film and at times you even forget that he is supposed to be Sinatra.So with a better cast this could have been a superb film but it is not.

gazzo-2 I enjoyed watching it quite a bit. Best actor there-Don Cheadle, was prob the most miscast though it was fun to watch him play Sammy. Deano was done alright by Montengna, while Lawford was shown to be a real wuss. Joey Bishop well he was just a cameo so who can say? Now Sinatra-Liotta has the attitude and manner down, but sure doesn't look like him. He's also over 6 foot while Ol' Blue Eyes was 5-9 maybe and skinny. But as Sinatra, Liotta wasn't a bad choice.You get a crash course in familiar faces/big names here: Sam Giancana, JFK, Joseph Kennedy, RFK, Marilyn, Joltin Joe, Johnny Rosselli, Ava Gardner, hmmmmm I am sure I'm leaving someone out but you get the idea. All this and some Hoover eavesdropping too! You even have allusions to J. Edgar and that infamous blackmail pic of him and Clyde Tolson, Mickey Cohen, a ludicrous scene of Sinatra trying to phone Nixon to concede the election(!) and of course, Dan O'Herlihy(from Robocop etc etc) running everything too. And yes the Klan shows. O and don't forget May Britt...Oh the buying of West Virgina primary votes and the Chicago votes by the mob too. That we all heard of as well.So was this any good?! Sure. Did I buy into it? Well...mostly. I got a kick outta Sinatra's tantrum when he found out that BING of all people was getting to host JFK instead of himself in California, and he starts to bash apart the half-finished additions to his Palm Springs mansion. Quite funny.The woman playing Ava was beautiful though Marilyn wasn't so convincing. Judith Campbell/Exner well that came off okay. Momo was shown w/ Rosselli tossing around the idea of 'whacking Frank', which hadda be a twist on things if ever there was one. This I did actually buy.Overall you will enjoy it though it did need some more of JFK's time in office, the CSI guy as JFK was a hoot. I liked their sailing scene together him and Sinatra.You won't go wrong with this if you just sit back and take it with a grain of salt.*** outta ****

caspian1978 First of all, this is a great movie. HBO has done it again by producing another interesting and thought provoking original movie. But, I have one complaint about the film. I am a New Englander such as our former President Kennedy was. He was born in Brookline and grew up in south eastern Massachusetts and he summered often in and around Cape Cod. When it comes to ice cream toppings, we here in New England don't have chocolate sprinkles....we have what we call "Jimmy's." You see, rainbow colored sprinkles are just that...sprinkles but chocolate sprinkles are known as "Jimmys." When Jack and Bobby decide to have some late night ice cream, Jack asks Bobby to get the sprinkles. Bobby hands him a jar of chocolate "Jimmys," not sprinkles. A boy from New England should know better, but the Hollywood based production would have no clue about the difference between chocolate and rainbow colored sprinkles / "Jimmys". Otherwise, the movie was good.

sddavis63 I've given a lot of thought to this movie and, in all honesty, I can't think of anything in particular to critique about it. Revolving around the relationship between the famous "Rat Pack" of the 1960's (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop) and focusing heavily on their relationship with the Kennedy's, this is a very entertaining, well-done film that provided a peek at the lives of the 1960's Hollywood jet-set. In addition to the Rat Pack and the Kennedy's we get glimpses of Marilyn Monroe (Barbara Niven) and Joe DiMaggio (John Diehl,) and a look at the involvement of organized crime.The performances are strong. Ray Liotta was a standout as Sinatra, but no less compelling were Joe Mantegna as Martin and Angus MacFadyen as Lawford. Bobby Slayton as Joey Bishop was less central to the story, but pulled off the character well. Only Don Cheadle (as Davis) seemed to not quite grasp his character, but he still managed a good performance. The intricacies of the relationship between the five (particularly between Sinatra and Lawford) are detailed and everything seems very natural. Is this really the way it was? I don't know. Only these five would know for sure, but the movie seemed plausible and was an entertaining evening - another success for HBO in my opinion.10/10. Really. I found it fascinating stuff.