Before watching Dark Legacy: George Bush and the Murder of John Kennedy, I had no idea that there were people out there who thought that George Bush Sr. had orchestrated the murder of John F. Kennedy. But really, it make sense; there are conspiracy theories about virtually everything, and the JFK assassination is definitely no exception.
The film is chock full of conspiracy theory goodness, and is thorough and zealous in its presentation of its "proof." It relies "exclusively on government documents, statements from the best witnesses available, and the words from the mouths of the killers themselves."
The 73-minute documentary is split into nine mini-chapters, which make up three "parts." Part One discusses the actual shooting and provides evidence to suggest that Kennedy was not actually shot from behind, but from the front and side. Part Two supposes that the FBI stole the body, pre-autopsy, to cover up the aforementioned theory, begging questions like why the body was removed from Texas, and what happened to Kennedy's brain? Part Three sets up the reasons as to why and how Bush could be connected to the assassination, citing bigotry, racism, and Nazi connections, amongst other things.
Archive news footage, as well as videos of speeches by JFK are used; there are also interviews with people who handled the body and the FBI reports. The narrator, cool as a cucumber, uses this information to present the "facts" in such a way that makes them seem like just that — facts. But step back and think about what he's saying, and it's easy to see that great leaps have been made to reach the conclusions made in Dark Legacy. Conspiracy theories are fun, but they can drive a person crazy, especially those particularly open to suggestion.
Is there potential truth in this movie? Your guess is as good as mine. The "evidence" provided could actually be evidence, but such is the case with any conspiracy theory. They're all about possibilities — "could be's" and "might be's."
Subject matter aside, the production value of Dark Legacy is kind of ... shoddy. Terra Entertainment produced the documentary which clearly had a very low budget; it features some crappy animations and amateur editing.
This isn't the first foray into paranoia taken by director John Hankey. Back in 2003 he wrote, produced and narrated JFK II: The Bush Connection, which seems basically like a longer version of Dark Legacy. The Dark Legacy website (thedarklegacy.com) has a whole (very lengthy) page — complete with footnotes — of Hankey's ideas about the military's possible designs to kill Barack Obama.
DVD Bonus Features
"The Assassination of JFK, Jr." trailer: actually a six-minute, horrendously-edited (with the bizarre animations mixed with pixelated copy-and-paste jobs, narrated by the same uncredited and unnamed guy who narrates Dark Legacy, over Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata," it's got much of the same things going for it as Dark Legacy) supposition about why JFK Jr.'s death wasn't an accident.
Though the DVD case advertises a handful of featurettes ("Deep History: Oswald, The FBI, and the Bushes"; "Single Bullet Theory Demolished"; "9-11 Justice"), they weren't actually included on the disc (maybe my copy is defective). They're online, however, at the film's web site; the first clocks in at about six minutes, while the other two run about 16 minutes each.
"Dark Legacy" is on sale April 20, 2010 and is not rated. Documentary. Directed by John Hankey. Starring NA.
