Where were you? I was about ten miles away, sitting in my Latin II
class at Garland High School and hoping that the teacher wasn't going
to call on me, when the radio abruptly came on the school's loudspeaker
system announcing the terrible news.
Everyone alive at the time of the Kennedy assassination supposedly
remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when the
president was murdered in Dallas. Neil Burger's fascinating and fun
film, INTERVIEW WITH THE ASSASSIN, is a contemporary mockumentary
that interviews a mysterious guy who claims that he was the infamous
second gunman on the grassy knoll who killed President Kennedy.
Structured as a road trip, INTERVIEW WITH THE ASSASSIN follows Ron
Kobeleski (Dylan Haggerty), an unemployed television cameraman, and
Walter Ohlinger (Raymond J. Barry), a nutcase who may or may not have
ever killed anyone, as they search for the truth, which is somewhere
out there. Normally calm, albeit dangerous when excited, Walter is
a shadowy figure who oozes intrigue out of every pore. When he isn't
in his matter-of-fact mode, he can be quite scary, like a grizzled
refugee from a John Carpenter horror picture.
Even if the movie is relatively short, it has lots of dead air time
in it. Still, it is the sort that mesmerizes more often than not.
Walter is an amazing character full of little insights. "Killing
someone's easy," Walter explains to Ron, as they tour the scene of
the crime. "The trick is getting away." And the movie, with some
twists worthy of an X-Files' episode, manages in the end to get away
in outlandish style.
INTERVIEW WITH THE ASSASSIN runs 1:28. It is not rated but might
be PG-13 for some violence and would be acceptable for kids around 11 and up.
Copyright © 2002 Steve Rhodes
out of 4
