Parkland

Released on the 50th year since JFK’s assassination, this ensemble drama takes place over the days surrounding the murder, concerning itself with the event’s direct effects on the secret service, FBI agents and local population of Dallas. The result is a scatterbrained, rushed feature shot with some of the most notably inept ‘shaky cam’ of late, and built on dramatically vapid storylines and characterisations.

The sole bright spot is a strand concerning Robert Oswald (Badge Dale) discovering of his brother Lee’s actions and processing the ostracisation by association his family seems destined to endure. One might be inclined to wish the whole film revolved around the struggle regarding his future, were it not for the fact that he ultimately never left the Dallas area nor changed his name, and also that any narrative pertaining to such would have to retain Jacki Weaver’s misguided comic turn as the deluded Oswald matriarch.

With no meat to its myriad small stories, Parkland is a recreation of a tragedy just for the sake of it, with no driving purpose or worthwhile insight except for those curious how to get a coffin on to a plane’s passenger section.