AussieTastic I think the trouble with making a movie, like this, that has ties with actual events, leads critics to over analyze the factuality's of the movie and lose sight of the purpose of the movie....... To Entertain.This is "Not a Documentary".I came to this movie from a perspective of having no idea who Jack Ruby was, as I have no interest in American political history, so I treated this as just a movie. Although, I do like gangster type movies eg. "The Untouchables" and found this to be in a similar police/criminals vein.Knowing Sherilyn Fenn and having a good regard for Danny Aiello's acting style, I thought this would be a good movie and I wasn't disappointed. Danny brings a strong, stable almost calming effect to this movie, while Sherilyn brings a simple cuteness and innocence, yet with a driving ambition and I think they work well together. The thing I didn't really like was the CIA character, just a bit far fetched for me.Was it ever destined to win an Academy Award?... hmmm... not likely, but I found it to be a good, solid, entertaining movie and worth the dollar I spent on the DVD at the discount shop. Anyone who gives this less than three stars is in for a rude shock because there are a lot worse movies than this out there.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Highly fictionalized account of the life and times, circa 1962-63, of nightclub owner and mobster Jack "Sparky" Ruby the assassin of accused, but never convicted in a court of law, JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby is made out to be both an FBI informer and well as low level member of the mob in the film in him leading a double life as a both good an bad guy. Were given to understand that Ruby was somehow involved in the attempted assassination of Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro that backfired and put him on the outs with his mob bosses. There's also a totally made up event where Ruby travels to Cuba to get mob boss Santo Alicante out of the country where he's told by his mob controller Louie Vitali to whack him. Ruby feeling he's being set up to be knocked off later by the mob ends up whacking Viteli instead. Jack Ruby is also given a love interest in the film in sexy blond runaway Sheryl Ann Dujean aka Candy Cane whom he takes under his wing, after running away from her abusive husband Hank, and make her the star attraction of his Dallas strip joint the Carousel Club. The big event in the movie is of course the afternoon of Novemberb 22 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinate in Dallas Texas. Were given the impression that Jack Ruby was somehow involved in the gunning down of JFK by knowing the plans to have him assassinated in advance. We even see Ruby moments before JFK's assassination focusing his attention on the picket fence at the infamous gassy noel where JFK's actual assassin was believed to be hiding at. That instead, as the shots was fired, of looking towards the Texas School Book Depository Building where the fatal shots that killed JFK supposedly, according to the Warren Commission, came from.As for the highlight in Jack Ruby's career the gunning down of a handcuffed and helpless Lee Harvey Oswald it's made to look like he was somehow hypnotized drugged or threatened to do it. The film already showed us that Ruby was certain that Oswald wasn't JFK's assassin yet like a mind controlled zombie he walks nonchalantly into the parking garage where Oswald was to be transfered to the Dallas Detention Center and without as much as a second thought in his head blows him away! All that in front of not only dozens of police and newsmen but some 150 million viewers watching the entire shocking spectacle on live TV!Ruby of course took whatever he had to do with both the JFK assassination and cold blooded murder of Lee Harvey Oswald to his gave three years later dying of cancer that's suspected by many the CIA injected him with. In fact Ruby was, this is real life not just in the film, willing to tell the American public everything he knew about both killings and who ,in the case of the JFK assassination, was behind them but was never given the chance by the Warren Commission. Whom very obviously, in it's cover up like actions, didn't want the truth behind these tragic events to ever see the light of day!

wlfgdn Whatever his role may or may not have been in the Kennedy assassination, Jack Ruby was not a good or nice man. Trying to make anything positive out of him is imbecilic to start with and the premises for this picture don't improve any on that. Danny Aiello playing Ruby as a kind person is out of touch.There were in 1963 more than 200 million Americans so tell me what the odds are that three people who know each other closely and work together could all independently have some role in the assassination? Jack Ruby's bartender just happens to be the gunman who fires the fatal shot from the book depository window? Come on now.Anything of intelligence is hard to find in this story and there is as much evidence to support the theory that Rootie Kazootie was the gunman as there is evidence or believability for the first concept here.So far as film-making goes we can only grade C+. Never really makes you much take notice and when they get to what should be the climax they just rush through it with even less thought or effort.At worst this epistle is an insult to history. The liner notes on the inexpensive VHS I found state "forces us to reconsider the 'truth' of Kennedy's death." Well, horsepoop to that, but I will reconsider wasting time on any film by John MacKenzie. If the same mysterious shadowy people held a gun to his head and forced him to film a bad script, well then let him come forward before someone has to make another bad movie so we can find that out too.

whpratt1 When I first watched the real Jack Ruby kill Oswald on the TV screen, we all felt like Jack was a hero and this picture came very close in telling the actual truth about what really went on in the White House, in Cuba, and all the so called HOODS involved. Danny Aiello,(Jack Ruby),"Mambo Cafe",2000, was the perfect choice to play the way Jack Ruby really looked and acted, I am sure Danny Aiello did a great deal of homework studying Ruby's characteristics. Sherilyn Fenn,(Candy Cane),"Lonelife",'97, put a big sparkle into the film with her sexy figure, she looked just like M. Monroe! Veteran actor Marc Lawrence,(Santos Alicante) who has performed in 178 films playing mostly gangsters and real bad guys gave a great supporting role. In my estimation, this is a great film about JACK RUBY!