Parkland

Marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, journalist-turned-writer/director Peter Landesman's Parkland—adapted from Vincent Bugliosi's 2008 book Four Days in November—is named for the Dallas hospital where first the President and later Lee Harvey Oswald were rushed on November 22, 1963. Fatally wounded, Kennedy was still alive when he arrived in Parkland's Emergency Room and was thrust into the hands of a trauma team headed by Dr. Charles “Jim” Carrico (Zac Efron). Trying to staunch the bleeding and assess the damage, Carrico was assisted by Head Nurse Doris Nelson (Marcia Gay Harden) and Dr. Malcolm Perry (Colin Hanks). While flashbacks show JFK (Brett Stimely) and his wife Jacqueline (Kat Steffens) before the bullets were fired, the film is more concerned with secondary figures whose lives were impacted, including Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti), who unwittingly photographed the pivotal 26 seconds on a Super 8 camera; Oswald's brother Robert (James Badge Dale) and mother Marguerite (Jacki Weaver), who heard about the shooting on the radio; and FBI Agent James Hosty (Ron Livingston), who had Oswald in his office just days before and was compiling a file on him (which he was later ordered to destroy to save the Bureau from embarrassment). Unfortunately, the film suffers from a misguided shift to melodrama during the second half. Optional. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by director Peter Landesman, deleted scenes (7 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for an uneven film.] (S. Granger)