Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Marcia Gay Harden | ... | Nurse Doris Nelson | |
Matt Barr | ... | Dr. Paul Mikkelson | |
Zac Efron | ... | Dr. Charles 'Jim' Carrico | |
Mallory Moye | ... | Emergency Room Nurse | |
Paul Giamatti | ... | Abraham Zapruder | |
Elizabeth Tulloch | ... | Marilyn Sitzman (as Bitsie Tulloch) | |
Ron Livingston | ... | James Hosty | |
Jason Douglas | ... | Ken Howe | |
David Harbour | ... | Gordon Shanklin | |
James Badge Dale | ... | Robert Oswald | |
Larry Jack Dotson | ... | Acme Brick Supervisor | |
Austin Nichols | ... | Emory Roberts | |
Billy Bob Thornton | ... | Forrest Sorrels | |
Jonathan Breck | ... | Winston Lawson | |
Eugene Lee | ... | Orderly |
Recounting the chaotic events that occurred in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963, Parkland weaves together the perspectives of a handful of ordinary individuals suddenly thrust into extraordinary circumstances: the young doctors and nurses at Parkland Hospital; Dallas' chief of the Secret Service; an unwitting cameraman who captured what became the most watched and examined film in history; the FBI agents who nearly had the gunman within their grasp; the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald, left to deal with his shattered family; and JFK's security team, witnesses to both the president's death and Vice President Lyndon Johnson's rise to power over a nation whose innocence was forever altered. Written by Exclusive Media Group
Parkland was the name of the hospital that President Kennedy was taken to after being shot in Dallas and Peter Landesman's film deals with the events of that day and the days that followed. It's a somewhat better film than the critics gave it credit for though it doesn't add anything to either the truth or the legend and prefers instead to concentrate on how the assassination affected the people on the ground, the hospital staff, the secret service agents, the Oswald family etc.
It's well cast and well played by some very talented players, (Marcia Gay Harden as a nurse, Billy Bob Thornton, Ron Livingston and David Harbour as secret service men, Paul Giametti as Abraham Zapruder, Jackie Weaver and James Badge Dale as Oswald's mother and brother; even Zac Efron as a young doctor who fails to save Kennedy's life is excellent). Landesman shoots it in a semi-documentary style which is fine though perhaps the editing is a little on the busy side; he doesn't seem to like to hold a frame for more than a few seconds at a time. I don't know, of course, how close any of this is to the facts but presumably the film was researched to within a few inches of its life and no matter how often this story has been told on screen it continues to be very moving.