Movies You Have Not Seen But Should: Parkland

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Movies You Have Not Have Seen But Should returns with the historical drama Parkland.

Parkland Featured

Welcome back to another installment of Movies You Have Not Have Seen But Should.  For this installment, we will look at the 2013 historical drama Parkland.  The film’s stars include Paul Giamatti, Billy Bob Thornton, Zac Efron and James Badge Dale.

The film is based on the book Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi. It was November 22, 1963. It is a date which will forever be remembered. It was the day in which the President of the United States was assassinated while visiting the city of Dallas, Texas. The film doesn’t as much focus on Kennedy himself (who is played in the film by Brett Stimely, who interestingly enough played President Kennedy also in Transformers: Dark of the Moon) as it focuses on the people around the event and the immediate impact that they felt.

The name for the film comes from Parkland Hospital in Dallas. This was the hospital that Kennedy was brought to after he was shot. The film does highlight the doctors and nurses that treated Kennedy. These include Dr. Jim Carrico (played by Efron), Dr. Malcom Perry (played by Colin Hanks), and Head Nurse Doris Nelson (played by Marcia Gay Harden). The film highlights what was going on at the hospital prior to Kennedy’s arrival, then trying to save Kennedy’s life and then the aftermath of his death.

Another view of the effect of Kennedy’s death comes from that of the Secret Service detail that Kennedy had while in Dallas. This was headed up by Agent Forrest Sorrels (played by Thornton). Their story intertwined with that of Abraham Zapruder (played by Giamatti) who was there filming the procession and caught Kennedy being shot on camera. This film depicts Zapruder’s state before and after the event.

It does focus on the interaction between Lee Harvey Oswald (played by Jeremy Strong) and his brother Robert Edward Lee Oswald Jr. (played by Dale). The focus is more on the brother and what he had to deal with being the brother of an assassin. The other main storyline focuses around the FBI and their investigation into the matter. This was led by FBI Agent James P. Hosty (played by Ron Livingston).

The film also features Jackie Earle Haley, Tom Welling, Gil Bellows, and Jacki Weaver. It was directed by Peter Landesman and producers for the film included Tom Hanks and Bill Paxton. It debuted at the Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2013. It released in theaters in the United States on October 4, 2013.

Parkland is available on DVD, Blu-Ray and Amazon Instant Streaming. This film does a pretty good job of being faithful to the facts while telling a pretty compelling story. It is a film that you may not have seen, but you should.

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