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Ranke (4)
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Netflix has it
I concur.
We just viewed this film last night, from Netflix, and I agree entirely with PrimeMinisterX. I recall reading about this project a couple of years ago, and about efforts by Kennedy's people to quash it, but then forgot about it - until the recent Fox documentary of the same name prompted us to seek it out. Not a great film, certainly, but a reasonably fair and balanced depiction that seems to be supported, in virtually every detail, by the several well-researched books that have appeared. It's also as fair and generous to Senator Kennedy as he could reasonably have expected; and based on what we now know about his behavior that weekend, more so than he deserved.
Why didn't it do better at the box office? It must have something to do with who goes to movies today, a cohort heavily weighted toward the young and the educationally handicapped, with little interest in politics and stunningly ill-informed about even the recent past. What did those behind this project think would be the attraction of a movie title that 95% of movie-goers could not identify? How many could even identify Kennedy himself, dead for nearly a decade? Maybe if the title had been something like "The Tragic Death of Mary Jo".....
In sum, a pretty good, historically realistic depiction of corrupt power at work. By any objective standard, Kennedy deserved a felony conviction (for vehicular manslaughter and OUI) and a lengthy prison term - or at least expulsion (from the Senate), as happened when he cheated in college. That he was rewarded instead with re-election is something the voters of Massachusetts have to answer for. I'm just a history prof myself, but my students, at least, will learn the truth.
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