Power and Beauty (2002 TV Movie)
4/10
Where's Bobby?
24 June 2006
This so-called expose of the Kennedy Administration's close ties with the mob tells nothing that hasn't been printed millions of times before. That he detested FBI director J. Edgar Hoover but couldn't bring him down because of his "file" on Kennedy has been buzzed about in the media for at least thirty years. Kennedy's girlfriends slipping in and out of the White House for rendezvous with the Chief Executive in the "Harding" closet is also passé. The Bay of Pigs fiasco has been worked to death by the media too. So why spend tons of money on a made-for-cable feature about a topic now irrelevant by overexposure? It's obvious from production values that not much dough was wasted by Showtime on this time filler.

The casting is poor as far as lookalikes. Even the lead Natasha Henstridge as Judy Exner doesn't resemble the Kennedy paramour very much. She would actually have done better playing Jackie. And where's Bobby? President Kennedy relied heavily on his younger brother for guidance and advice. Bobby was a key figure in taking Marilyn Monroe off the President's hands following her Happy Birthday indiscretion on national TV. John and Robert were nearly always together. In this film, he is only mentioned once or twice and never shown.

The movie does reveal Judy Exner as being naive not only in romance but also in politics. Obviously caught up in the glitz and glitter of high society and Washington politics, she went along for the thrill ride with no thought of the consequences. That she was used and abused by the Kennedy bunch is difficult to believe. After all, what did she really have to offer in return besides sex? And even that came easy for JFK, the sixty-second man.
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