‘Parkland’ is a straight procedural take on the JFK movie

“Parkland,” written and directed by magazine journalist Peter Landesman, follows the President John F. Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, to his burial three days later. Anyone expecting another conspiracy theory, though, will be sorely disappointed.

Timed with the 50^th anniversary of Kennedy’s death in Dallas, Texas, "Parkland" — which opens wide Oct. 4 — sticks closely to the official take on events based on Vincent Bugliosi’s "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy." A far cry from the wild speculations that have surrounded the shooting and formed the basis of films like Oliver Stone’s "JFK."

"The film is not about conspiracies,” the first-time director Peter Landesman told reporters in Venice at the film's world premiere. “We chose to tell a truthful story, one we know happened to those particular characters, the ordinary people caught up in the wake of this historical event."

Co-produced by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, the film assembles an all-star cast to play a kaleidoscope of characters whose lives were affected by that fateful day. Zac Efron plays a doctor at Parkland Memorial Hospital, from which the film takes its name and where President Kennedy and assassin Lee Harvey Oswald died. (Nightclub owner Jack Ruby — who shot Oswald — would die of an embolism there four years later.) Paul Giamatti is Abraham Zapruder, the clothing manufacturer whose home-movie footage has since become a part of the public consciousness. Billy Bob Thornton, Jackie Earle Haley and Colin Hanks also star, but James Badge-Dale has been attracting plaudits for his turn as Lee Harvey’s brother Robert Oswald.

Despite following the official line of events, "There’s not a scene in this movie that anybody’s ever seen before," Landesman promised. "We wanted to take an audience and put them in the shoes of these people and have it wash over them like a wave."

Venice Film Festival attendees gave the "Parkland" a standing ovation, but critical reception has been mixed. The Fresh rating on reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is well below 50 per cent, with critics calling the effort everything from a "stolid yet involving account" to an "inadvertently tacky restaging of events." Its screening at the Toronto International Film Festival will be a big test of whether audiences have an appetite for the official story, or if conspiracy is still king when it comes to telling Kennedy’s story on the big screen.

TIFF screenings: 9:30 p.m. Friday Sept. 6, Roy Thomson Hall and 12:30 p.m. Sunday Sept. 8 Winter Garden Theatre.

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