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If you’ve been kicking around the Hollywood scene long enough and you know your industry-speak and jargon, then the name of David Mamet is usually uttered by those in the know in the same breath as the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alfred Hitchcock or William Wyler. Credit that bit of idolatry to Mamet’s unparalleled writing which has produced such classic films as Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables and James Foley’s Glengarry Glen Ross. With the ability to turn a memorable phrase like nobody else’s business and the best character-building skills of any would-be scribe that ever plunked down in front of an Underwood typewriter, it’s easy to see why Mamet is on every director and studio’s short-list as someone they would desperately love to be in business with. It’s precisely that natural born ability which Mamet has in spades that makes today’s bit of news from our Oliver Stone fans over at Variety a true reason to celebrate if you’re at all a fan of really good movies and any sort of a student of unsolved mysteries…
Acclaimed writer and director David Mamet will be reopening the November 22, 1963 murder of President John F. Kennedy in his upcoming film Assassination. The new movie will, according to the handy-dandy synopsis, take place during 1963 when, during a critical government hearing into organized crime, “the head of the Chicago mob orders the assassination of President John F. Kennedy Jr., creating a deadly conspiracy while altering the fate of a nation.”
The other big headline with Assassination is the star-studded cast which Pulitzer Prize-winner David Mamet has managed to assemble to tell his dark tale: Shia LaBeouf, Al Pacino, Viggo Mortensen, Courtney Love and John Travolta lead one of the more impressive ensembles outside of a P.T.Anderson or Martin Scorsese flick. Co-written by Mamet with Nicholas Celozzi, Assassination will deep-dive into the theory that infamous crime boss Sam Giancana gave the order to have J.F.K. taken out. To add a layer of believability to that notion, Celozzi himself counts Giancana as his great-uncle. If that doesn’t give this movie some insider information lacking in other similar films then we’ll eat our proverbial umbrellas, Dear and Constant Reader.
And speaking of those other “similar” films: Surely one of the more well-known and highly-regarded films to ever tackle the events on November 22, 1963 was director Oliver Stone’s controversial JFK, which saw Kevin Costner’s take on real-life D.A. Jim Garrison as he follows similarly themed bunny trails as the one presented in Assassination. Nearly flawless in its tone and execution, JFK stands as one of the better cinematic achievements in the history of film; Assassination has its work cut out for it.
Assassination goes into production this September.
