blanche-2 This documentary explores another theory of the JFK assassination.In this theory, there were two shooters, Lee Harvey Oswald and a Secret Security agent named George Hickey in the other car.I can't say whether or not it's any truer than anything else, but I'll say this. These documentaries always make compelling stories. Why? Because they take a moment, a statement, a situation, and make a decision about it, usually that it has an ulterior motive, and build a conspiracy theory around it.For instance, at the hospital in Dallas, the Secret Service would not allow the doctor there to perform the autopsy. They demanded the body be returned to Washington. EVIL COVER-UP. Give me a break. This is the President of the United States, and they're going to let a local doctor do the autopsy? Here's another one -- There were all these photographs taken by various people who were there that day, and the Secret Service took the photos and never returned them. HELLO. This was the assassination of a U.S. President, not May Day photos of children dancing around a pole with flowers. OF COURSE they took the photos, every single photo had to be examined.My favorite - eyewitness accounts that fly in the face of what was said by other witnesses who testified at the Warren Commission hearings. Ever asked a bunch of witnesses of a crime what the culprit looked like? You're telling me that shots were fired, people hit the ground, screamed, and then are able to give reliable testimony? They counted the shots? They watched someone stand up in a car? Here's another and it was mentioned constantly. All the chaos in the room at the hospital, all the yelling, all the people, the jostling. RIGHT. THE PRESIDENT HAD JUST BEEN SHOT. You're expecting total silence while people are trying to find out if he's alive or dead, make arrangements to swear in Johnson, get some sort of announcement together for reporters, keep news from getting out before there are definitive answers, keep people who don't belong there away from the body? Chaos. Gee, wouldn't have expected that with the President's body there.So did the Secret Service guy fire a third shot? The theory here is that it was friendly fire and they wanted to cover up that fact. Others on this board think it wasn't an accident, he was aiming at the President. Now, if he was aiming at the President, they really needed to terminate him and put him in prison. Why wouldn't they have done that? All the Secret Service hated JFK and wanted to see him dead? What is the point of covering up what this guy did, if he did it? Covering it up to the public -- okay, yes, I can see that. We pay their salaries. But why close ranks to help a traitor? Also, do we honestly think this was the fatal shot? I'm sorry, the poor man was hit in the back and the head before this third shot. Not sure if he would have survived and if he had, I doubt he would have been able to hold the office of President.I go into this type of thing skeptical because there are so many conspiracy theories about absolutely everything, and it seems like someone can go through the literature and come up with an alternate idea of what happened.It's always the same thing: Elvis is alive and living over a bowling alley; JFK survived and is probably living with him; Hitler survived; Princess Diana was murdered; we didn't get the real story of 9/11; etc. Meanwhile, try to get your doctor's office to fax something, or ask an office to find the fax you've sent five times, or have someone read your email correctly and give you the info you asked for -- how can you have a conspiracy when everybody is always screwing up? Do I think the Warren Commission gave us the real story? No, of course not. We are much more savvy today and we know that the government lies, and whatever the commission couldn't explain, it pretended it didn't happen. Eighty witnesses say 65 different things, you go with the fifteen who said the same thing. Do I believe that the Dallas police really cared if anyone shot Oswald? Obviously they were hoping someone would come along and kill him while they were meandering through a parking space on the way to a truck that was obviously not close to where they came from.This theory is just as viable or ridiculous as any other one. We won't ever know what happened. It's a tragic time in history, people find the different investigations compelling, I loved the movie JFK, but in the end, we're all just spinning our wheels. See Four Days in November, have yourself a good cry, and watch these documentaries with a skepticism and detachment.

p-frame Although the film brought up some interesting and valid points, McLaren's theory that a Secret Service agent in the car behind Kennedy's accidentally fatally shot the president is very hard to believe.If his theory is true, how come out of the hundreds of people that were on site, nobody saw the agent fire? I realize that the crowd's attention was focused on Kennedy, but if the agent in the motorcade fired on the president in the middle of the day in front all those witnesses, surely at least one, and probably several people would have seen it.Since no one did, his theory falls apart.

Robert W. I am a JFK historian, relatively respected in the field and I LOVE a great JFK/Assassination film. Do I have opinions on the assassination? Of course. I wouldn't be much of a historian if I didn't. However, I consider myself incredibly open minded and am not opposed to any new information that may change my ideas or theories because the truth is none of us know what happened that day and sadly/most likely never will. However, this latest documentary will do NOTHING to further that investigation. This is ridiculous. I have read Mortal Error, the book that this is based on, and as silly as I thought the concept was I actually thought the book made some valid points and interesting ideas. The documentary though is quite simply silly. It is slapped together, is 99% recreations that are B-Movie quality at best. The actors are unintentionally parodying the entire situation with terrible representations and Warren Commission testimonies that are laughable. The dramatic music, the horn rimmed villain, the melodramatic pleas for justice...its silly and if they meant this to be taken seriously, they fail miserable.Interestingly enough most of the cast in the film aren't listed on IMDb meaning they were probably friends and family which explain a lot. This is a grievous error if they were trying to be taken seriously. The woman who portrayed Jackie Kennedy briefly should be barred from every performing again and she never even speaks. Alex Ivanovici is a decent narrator to the story. He certainly has the right voice and his raspy melodramatic tone fits the documentary if you can call it that. Our lead investigator in the film is interesting enough and seems to have a decent personality and actually feels like he is taking this seriously. Fortunately for the film he is the one aspect of the film that doesn't feel schlocky but they don't use him very often considering he's the focus of the entire investigation. The first part of the documentary is far more interesting as they cover familiar ground for most JFK historians but they do it will with diagrams and computer recreations. I actually quite enjoyed the first half of the film considering it was all rehashed material.I also thought the directing of the film was pretty solid too. Malcolm McDonald has had a fair amount of experience doing documentaries and it does show. He turns a really awful idea and some terrible recreations into a reasonably watchable joke. The beautiful scenes of Dealy Plaza and the melodramatic investigation scenes fit the film and make it at least mostly entertaining. It's the last 1/4 of the film when they suddenly spring on you where this concept is going and what they think happening that it becomes laughable. Most of what they say makes no sense at all even at the most rudimentary level. Some, if not all, of the Warren Commission testimony is paraphrased or completely made up. Some of it I literally can't find a single piece of documentation on and yet they are spouting it as fact. I don't believe there was a single actual interview with any real person but rather terrible recreation after terrible recreation. I hate to be insulting to anyone that enjoyed this but I felt like this was severely dumbed down and by far one of the least intelligent JFK documentaries I have ever seen and I've seen dozens. This one is barely passable as morbid entertainment and that's about it. 6/10

dfle3 I have had a casual interest in the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy since I was a small child and saw the great (as I remember it) documentary/'trial' of Lee Harvey Oswald in "On trial: Lee Harvey Oswald" (I'll call him "LHO" from now on). Even though the details of that documentary now escape me, I do recall my disbelief that that jury for the trial of Oswald found that he was solely responsible for the assassination. It would be interesting to revisit that documentary in the wake of this definitive documentary. Lastly, I also remember seeing Oliver Stone's "JFK" but the details of that escape me too. Yet again, it would be interesting to revisit that drama in the wake of the puzzle being solved by this current documentary.So, as a casual observer of this conspiracy theory laden event par excellence, I have to say that "JFK: The smoking gun" is either the starting point or the end point for anyone who wants answers to the mystery of "Who shot JFK?". For some, definitive proof will never be enough, so this documentary should start as a jumping off point for them...as in they MUST heed the findings here, lest they seem obstinate. For example, I think it was in "On trial: Lee Harvey Oswald" where I first heard of "the magic bullet theory". The effect of this theory is to lead one to suppose that any scenario where LHO's bullet is supposed to have hit the targets it was meant to is so ludicrous as to be ruled out of hand. "JFK: The smoking gun" proves that the bullet DID in fact do what it was supposed to have done and it only seems "magic" if the assumptions that you make about the layout of the car are false. So, assuming that the layout presented in "JFK:TSG" is correct, there's just no way in the world you can credibly dismiss that bullet as having "magic" properties. It's just ludicrous to assert that it is anymore."JFK:TSG" is presented by an Australian former detective Colin McLaren. He treats the assassination as a 'cold case' and goes through The Warren Commission's report, in the wake of reading a theory by Howard Donahue (a ballistics expert) documented in Bonar Menninger's book "Mortal error: The shot that killed JFK". In the wake of JFK's assassination, Donahue was involved in a TV network's recreation of the assassination to ascertain whether LHO could indeed have fired off three shots in under six seconds. Donahue could...but after three attempts...suggesting that LHO is unlikely to have done so, seeing as he only had one attempt to do this. So, in essence, McLaren's documentary is basically overkill for those for whom ballistics science is inadequate...for whatever reason. McLaren presents testimony to support Donahue's theory.The basic findings of this documentary are as follow: 01) LHO fired two shots at JFK. His first missed the target BUT, via a ricochet, JFK was hit by debris, which prompted his comment of "My God, I'm hit".02) LHO fires off his last shot. It hits his target and also injures Governor Connally. Due to the seating layout, the ballistics stack up such that there is nothing "magic" about the bullet's trajectory. It fits.03) In a car behind JFK, Secret Service agent George Hickey, arming himself with a rifle in the wake of the (potentially) non-lethal shot on JFK picks up an automatic rifle in order to respond to the would be assassin but is knocked back by his car accelerating away, accidentally firing off a shot...the shot which impacts with devastating results on JFK's head.04) The Secret Service, knowing full well that one of its own killed JFK, systematically covers up this truth at each and every opportunity.05) The Warren Commission also is a whitewash, with Assistant Counsel Arlen Spector actively derailing any opportunity for the truth to become known about the Secret Service's involvement.I would add here that what I outline here ties in neatly with LHO famously claiming "I'm just a patsy". He'd know full well that the lethal shot was not fired by him.Where there is scope for the conspiracy theorists, I'm sure, is the extent to which the Secret Service's killing of JFK was accidental, as well as the usual stuff about who LHO was involved with. This documentary does not answer those questions...it assumes - probably quite rightly - that the lethal shot was accidental and does not delve into who LHO was involved in...perhaps due to that being so murky as far as definitive answers go.I'm satisfied that the account presented here is accurate and best fits the facts...the ballistics evidence and the testimony of the time all reinforce the account...in ways which the Warren Commission's findings don't. It was staggering to see how unprofessional the Secret Service agents were on the morning/day of the assassination and it's an open question as to how justified their cover-up was in the wake of this tragedy. An implication that I would draw is that the Secret Service would in fact have reason/motive to want LHO dead before he could testify.Interestingly, George Hickey waited two years before suing Menninger over the contents of his book. It was dismissed due to the statute of limitations. When the book was later re-released in paperback, he sued again. The publisher etc. settled out of court...Hickey had ground out a 'win' for himself. I'm not sure that 'victory' is good for history. I hope that Jackie Kennedy knew the truth of what happened too and that it was 'only' the public who were 'protected' from this awful truth.