Ruby ««
R, 111m. 1992
Cast & Credits: Danny Aiello (Jack Ruby), Sherilyn Fenn (Candy Cane), Tobin Bell (David Ferrie), Arliss Howard (Maxwell). Screenplay by Stephen Davis. Directed by John Mackenzie.
<
R, 111m. 1992
Cast & Credits: Danny Aiello (Jack Ruby), Sherilyn Fenn (Candy Cane), Tobin Bell (David Ferrie), Arliss Howard (Maxwell). Screenplay by Stephen Davis. Directed by John Mackenzie.
<
The plot of Ruby is like a puzzle. Just when you think you have finished putting the pieces together, you find parts missing. The film offers little new insight on the life of Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby and gives too much speculation on his possible role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This is one of those rare movies, though, that I would probably see again because I enjoyed Danny Aiello’s and Sherilyn Fenn’s performances.
Aiello, who stars in the title role, gives a haunting, lonely, and sad portrayal as the man who murdered alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, on network television Nov. 24, 1963. Ruby has no friends except his two small dachshunds whom he takes everywhere. His contacts, who call him “Sparky from Chicago,” are business associates whose job descriptions range from gangsters and FBI agents to crooked Dallas police detectives who deal in drugs.
Most of the action takes place at Ruby’s Carousel Club where Jack hires on singer/dancer Candy Cane (Fenn) whose blond hair and sweet voice bears a striking resemblance to Marilyn Monroe. The best moments are when the two first meet at a bus stop in Dallas and chat like they are best friends joking with one another.
“I am from Nowhere, Texas,” Candy tells him, who is leaving her abusive, alcoholic husband to start a new life. Ruby lets her stay at his strip club until she can find a place of her own. He doesn’t even offer her a job until she suggests it the next day, showing him a PG-13 dance of hers wearing a short white skirt and top, a western hat and cowboy boots.
Ruby is almost like a father figure to Candy. When the two go on a mysterious trip to Cuba to meet mob boss Santos Allacante, he tells her prior to the private meeting with the mobster that she doesn’t have to do anything she don’t want to do.
The film, unfortunately, is filled with intriguing little subplots that don’t make much sense. There are references about the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro with explosive cigars, TV news footage of crime commission hearings with gangster Joe Valachi and JFK giving speeches and playing with his kids.
The lines the characters say sound as if the audience heard only a part of the conversation. The scene where the two leads are in Cuba is one example. Ruby is asked by another mobster to sneak Santos off the island. Then there’s a plot to murder the gangster. And aside from the fact I had no idea why Santos was being held on the island in the first place, the reasons for the plot are never fully explained.
Other characters come on screen and talk as if the audience already knows who they are and what their purpose is like the ruthless, sarcastic temperamental C.I.A. agent Maxwell played by Arliss Howard. He obviously knows a lot more about the agency’s covert operations on Castro and JFK than what he reveals.
Then there is Tobin Bell, as the smiling, sinister David Ferrie, whose character also lacks depth and whose role is to set up Oswald as the lone gunman. But unless one has seen Oliver Stone’s epic conspiracy minded film, JFK (1991), or have read numerous books about possible suspects in the President’s assassination, you won’t have a clue as to who Ferrie is in this movie.
The film does offer some interesting theories on the assassination. The plot is similar to the 1974 film, Executive Action. Instead of white supremacist businessmen, it’s the Mafia who plans the murder in Ruby. And where as Stone’s JFK depicted the president as a tragic hero, director John Mackenzie provides a glimpse into Camelot’s less than moralistic ways.
In a rather clever sequence, the president’s helicopter makes an unscheduled stop to hear singer, Tony Montana (Frank Sinatra in real life), at a Las Vegas casino. Kennedy hugs and shakes hands with gangsters Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli and Allacante in one area of the casino before being paired up with Candy.
The assassination itself, in which singer Judy Collins’ “Amazing Grace” can be heard in the background, is graphically realistic. I got the eerie feeling I was actually witnessing Kennedy’s murder just as Abraham Zapruder and the 200 other witnesses saw it Nov. 22, 1963.
Once the assassination is over, however, the film fails to clarify Ruby’s motive for murdering Oswald. The movie draws the same conclusion a couple books have suggested which is one, he may have been distraught over the murder and wanted to prevent Jackie Kennedy from having to come back to Dallas to testify in Oswald’s trial.
Or two, the nightclub owner wanted to blow the conspiracy wide open. But since Ruby, in real life, was never allowed to go to Washington to testify before the Warren Commission on his role in the assassination, we will never know the whole truth. It is all vague speculation, which is exactly what this movie is.
Because the film seems to suffer from an incomplete script, unexplored characters and a lot of unanswered questions, all we are left with is a movie about a man who didn’t so much want to be famous as he wanted to be liked.
“You all know me,” Ruby smiles before going into a forced drug-induced sleep in jail, “my name’s Jack Ruby.
©3/27/92
Aiello, who stars in the title role, gives a haunting, lonely, and sad portrayal as the man who murdered alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, on network television Nov. 24, 1963. Ruby has no friends except his two small dachshunds whom he takes everywhere. His contacts, who call him “Sparky from Chicago,” are business associates whose job descriptions range from gangsters and FBI agents to crooked Dallas police detectives who deal in drugs.
Most of the action takes place at Ruby’s Carousel Club where Jack hires on singer/dancer Candy Cane (Fenn) whose blond hair and sweet voice bears a striking resemblance to Marilyn Monroe. The best moments are when the two first meet at a bus stop in Dallas and chat like they are best friends joking with one another.
“I am from Nowhere, Texas,” Candy tells him, who is leaving her abusive, alcoholic husband to start a new life. Ruby lets her stay at his strip club until she can find a place of her own. He doesn’t even offer her a job until she suggests it the next day, showing him a PG-13 dance of hers wearing a short white skirt and top, a western hat and cowboy boots.
Ruby is almost like a father figure to Candy. When the two go on a mysterious trip to Cuba to meet mob boss Santos Allacante, he tells her prior to the private meeting with the mobster that she doesn’t have to do anything she don’t want to do.
The film, unfortunately, is filled with intriguing little subplots that don’t make much sense. There are references about the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro with explosive cigars, TV news footage of crime commission hearings with gangster Joe Valachi and JFK giving speeches and playing with his kids.
The lines the characters say sound as if the audience heard only a part of the conversation. The scene where the two leads are in Cuba is one example. Ruby is asked by another mobster to sneak Santos off the island. Then there’s a plot to murder the gangster. And aside from the fact I had no idea why Santos was being held on the island in the first place, the reasons for the plot are never fully explained.
Other characters come on screen and talk as if the audience already knows who they are and what their purpose is like the ruthless, sarcastic temperamental C.I.A. agent Maxwell played by Arliss Howard. He obviously knows a lot more about the agency’s covert operations on Castro and JFK than what he reveals.
Then there is Tobin Bell, as the smiling, sinister David Ferrie, whose character also lacks depth and whose role is to set up Oswald as the lone gunman. But unless one has seen Oliver Stone’s epic conspiracy minded film, JFK (1991), or have read numerous books about possible suspects in the President’s assassination, you won’t have a clue as to who Ferrie is in this movie.
The film does offer some interesting theories on the assassination. The plot is similar to the 1974 film, Executive Action. Instead of white supremacist businessmen, it’s the Mafia who plans the murder in Ruby. And where as Stone’s JFK depicted the president as a tragic hero, director John Mackenzie provides a glimpse into Camelot’s less than moralistic ways.
In a rather clever sequence, the president’s helicopter makes an unscheduled stop to hear singer, Tony Montana (Frank Sinatra in real life), at a Las Vegas casino. Kennedy hugs and shakes hands with gangsters Sam Giancana, Johnny Roselli and Allacante in one area of the casino before being paired up with Candy.
The assassination itself, in which singer Judy Collins’ “Amazing Grace” can be heard in the background, is graphically realistic. I got the eerie feeling I was actually witnessing Kennedy’s murder just as Abraham Zapruder and the 200 other witnesses saw it Nov. 22, 1963.
Once the assassination is over, however, the film fails to clarify Ruby’s motive for murdering Oswald. The movie draws the same conclusion a couple books have suggested which is one, he may have been distraught over the murder and wanted to prevent Jackie Kennedy from having to come back to Dallas to testify in Oswald’s trial.
Or two, the nightclub owner wanted to blow the conspiracy wide open. But since Ruby, in real life, was never allowed to go to Washington to testify before the Warren Commission on his role in the assassination, we will never know the whole truth. It is all vague speculation, which is exactly what this movie is.
Because the film seems to suffer from an incomplete script, unexplored characters and a lot of unanswered questions, all we are left with is a movie about a man who didn’t so much want to be famous as he wanted to be liked.
“You all know me,” Ruby smiles before going into a forced drug-induced sleep in jail, “my name’s Jack Ruby.
©3/27/92
No comments:
Post a Comment