Interview with the Assassin

The driving force behind this fictional "documentary" is an intimidating, volatile performance by low-profile character actor Raymond J. Barry (Training Day, The Deep End), who plays a grayed, acrimonious ex-Marine sniper who claims--now that he's dying of cancer and has nothing to lose--to have been the elusive, legendary second gunman on the "grassy knoll"--i.e., the real killer of President John F. Kennedy. Barry induces goosebumps as he leads an obsessed, unemployed TV cameraman (Dylan Haggerty) on a paranoid cross-country quest for proof of his claim in the film's intimate and tense Blair Witch-like cinema vérité style, and writer-director Neil Burger builds palpable menace as Haggerty's initial skepticism and later justified fear lead him into real danger. All the while, the handheld camera point-of-view serves to make viewers feel as if they were looking through the camera's eyepiece themselves. Interview With the Assassin stumbles a bit in its finale by landing Haggerty in what seems like an avoidable position, but the film ultimately does earn a rightful place in the unique and chilling tradition of great Kennedy conspiracy lore. Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)