Parkland (2013)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Beautiful, moving film.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I had never heard of this film but bought it only because I saw Billy Bob Thornton was in it. It's about the Kennedy assassination but from a totally different perspective than the usual. It is seen through the eyes of the people, the ordinary people who lived it and the impact it had on them. Seeing how camera man Abraham Zapruder was horrified at what he saw takes things to a deeper lever. As does the Lee Harvey's brother, who although innocent of anything, knows his life is changed and so is that of his and Lee's children. My only complaint is the somewhat graphic scene in the emergency room when the doctors and nurses where trying to save the presidents life. In typical modern hollywood style they had to go over the top. The doctors,nurses,, everyone,, was covered in blood. The president was already dead he wouldn't have been squirting blood around the room. There's no reason for the nurses to be drenched in blood. It was too over the top. As one who works in emergency medicine,, this doesn't happen. I was disappointed they went so hollywood and followed the modern version of added gore and blood. Otherwise , a really good film. Well thought out. Great acting all around. Really makes this a personal incident. Thank you.

I was very excited when I heard that they were making a movie about Abraham Zapruder and the events that unfolded at the Parkland hospital at the day of JFKs assassination. Unfortunately, the story was poorly told and kind of cobbled together in bits and pieces. Paul Giamatti is often hit and miss for me, but I liked him as the earnest Zapruder, who in real life, DID sell the footage at a low price to a reputable source rather than try to get as much money as possible. had the script focused on telling his story, rather than diluting its subject by adding in the drama at the hospital, this movie could have been made good. The downfall of this movie largely (ironically) the depiction of events at Parkland, the hospital they named the film after. Zac Efron is completely and utterly unbelievable as a doctor at Parkland. this film falls down in its inability to capture any sort of authenticity at the hospital. If you like history and want some authenticity, I would not bother with this film. If you are curious about some of the names such as Zapruder, and you aren't picky, its something okay to throw on if you are bored on a rainy night.

A relatively straight-forward telling of a historical event with lots of blood and gore. John F. Kennedy apparently had so much blood in his body that even after so much of it must have spilled in the limousine, there was still enough left over to completely soak every doctor's shirt and cover every person's hands within a 20-foot radius of the ER. Yes, this director, Peter Landesman, sure does like gore. And yet, he was strangely demure about showing the moment of JFK's assassination (all of that was accomplished through reaction shots).The plus of this movie is its highlighting of details that folks might never consider, like when the Dallas medical examiner wouldn't allow JFK's body to leave the hospital because he was a murder victim, or that L. H. Oswald's mother thought her son was an agent of the US government.These "real life" details occasionally got a bit dubious though, I thought, like when one secret service agent took out a hack-saw and cut away a section of Airforce One's fuselage to allow JFK's coffin in. Really? Is an airplane so easily cut? If so, would it still be safe to fly in? Oh well, Hollywood, right? Or, maybe this really happened. That's the problem with biopics, it's hard to tell where reality leaves off and convenient creativity begins.All in all, Parkland was a well-made period piece where little details take center stage. Mildly recommended.p.s. Hello again Jackie Earle Haley. Kelly from the Bad News Bears is in everything these days! Good for you, man.

Based on Vincent Bugliosi's book, Four Days in November, the film Parkland chronicles the events following the assassination of JFK. What I liked about this film was how it tells a part of the story that isn't widely known. From the doctors at the hospital, working on the President, to the acquisition of the Zapruder film, Parkland goes behind the scenes to tell the untold story. I was also impressed with how the film managed to stick to the facts and not dwell on any of the conspiracy theories that surround the case. Zac Efron stars and really wasn't all that great. I think that Efron needs to stick to what he does best, taking his cloths off and making people laugh. While the film is kind of slow, I really enjoyed Paul Giamatti's portrayal of Abraham Zapruder, the man who filmed the assassination. Zapruder really struggled with releasing the tape to the media and the events he witnessed ultimately destroyed his life. Giamatti's portrayal of the man is supposedly spot on and truly deserves an honor mention. Parkland gives us a lot of new information about the events that followed the assassination of President Kennedy, but a lot of it are things the general public really aren't that interested in learning about. For a Kennedy aficionado, this film must of been eye opening, as for the rest of us, it was an interesting, non-bias view of history, albeit a little boring.