"The Package" -- The Most Important JFK Assassination-Related Film to Date

[Jan Klimkowski]

Magda - excellent points.

Two things to note.
Firstly, early in the movie when the US general who did not want to participate in the operation and who was blown up in his car down the road from the country house the action was claimed by some 'terrorist' group. Clearly it was not that group but another with altogether different aims. I wonder how many times this has happened in the real world? There are several actions attributed to INLA that I have reason to believe were not done by them. (And there is at least one action carried out by them that they probably didn't initiate despite thinking they did so. Most ably demonstrated in Jan's thread here )

Indeed.

That's a level of sophistication and coherence rarely seen in movies.

Secondly, when ever I see Tommy Lee Jones in a movie I am always reminded that his cousin is Charles Braden whose day job used to be the CIA liason to Hollywood. His current mission seems to be to push Roswell as a real extraterrestial event. Quite interesting given his cousin's prominent role as Men in Black's Agent 'K'....I quite like TLJ as an actor and he seems an interesting person in his own right. Mum a police officer, college room mate of Al Gore, serious polo player with Argentinian stables, promoter of fracking. Did his college thesis on 'Catholic mechanics' within the literary works of Flannery O'Connor.

I suspect the spooks were happy that The Package did not recover its budget at the box office....

[Seamus Coogan]

I enjoyed that movie was fun. I liked the ending of it all, I also liked the elimination of the patsy. Hackman was also superb as usual, I am surprised I have not seen it before. My favorite is still the "Parrallax View." simply because of the sinister underpinnings of it all. "Z" is also pretty bloody good. However, "The Package" is good because it conveys some very complex intelligence ideas, in a way the average punter can understand. Like I said the ending was also well realized. I can see how CD would have enjoyed it... and it is a useful tool.

[Magda Hassan]

I enjoyed that movie was fun. I liked the ending of it all...

LOL! Typical Hollywood ending. The bad guys were caught the good guys prevailed and they all lived happily ever after.

[Seamus Coogan]

I enjoyed that movie was fun. I liked the ending of it all...

LOL! Typical Hollywood ending. The bad guys were caught the good guys prevailed and they all lived happily ever after.

o

Yes, it was generally pretty feel good. Hey interesting about old Tommy Lee Jones family. Good digging Mags!

[Magda Hassan]

Hey interesting about old Tommy Lee Jones family. Good digging Mags!

Yeah, would love to be a fly on the wall at the family get togethers....

[Seamus Coogan]

Hey interesting about old Tommy Lee Jones family. Good digging Mags!

Yeah, would love to be a fly on the wall at the family get togethers....

Shit yes. His performance of Shaw was brilliant in JFK, I dunno if they'd have liked that. I saw an interview with Lee Jones stating he believed the WC was full of shit. So yeah, really interesting.

[Magda Hassan]

Shit yes. His performance of Shaw was brilliant in JFK, I dunno if they'd have liked that. I saw an interview with Lee Jones stating he believed the WC was full of shit. So yeah, really interesting.

Clay Shaw/Bertrand was a great role. He's done some good work. Just wonder how it is chosen. And presented.

[David Lifton]

And its superficial plot has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Kennedy assassination.

The Package, released in 1989, was written by John Bishop and directed by Andrew Davis. Cast includes Gene Hackman, Tommy Lee Jones, Joanna Cassidy, John Heard, Dennis Franz, and Pam Grier.

Hackman plays a US Army sergeant assigned to bring criminal soldier Jones back to the states for incarceration. Prior to that assignment, Hackman was involved in providing security for a NATO conference at which high-ranking American and Soviet military and intelligence officers were in attendance to negotiate the terms of an upcoming summit meeting. The unnamed leaders clearly were modeled on George Herbert Walker Bush and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev.

Hackman gets Jones back to D.C., but before they can leave the airport Hackman is mugged. When he regains consciousness, Jones is gone.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm going to condense the plot, so if you haven't seen the film, I STRONGLY urge you to do so.

Jones's character is a world-class sniper who has been sent to Chicago to assassinate one or both of the leaders. Part of the plot -- brilliantly depicted -- will be the patsying of a young man who is led to believe that he's on an important intelligence mission to infiltrate a group of White militants hostile to detente. He is given a job on a high floor of an office building overlooking the podium on which some sort of Cold War-ending treaty will be signed.

The most important element of The Package is its depiction of the conspiracy's high-ranking Facilitators: military and intelligence offices whose masters are above Cold-War differences.

Writer John Dickson Bishop was born in Ohio in 1929 and died of cancer in December, 2006 in Bad Heilbrunn, Germany.

Bishop began his career as an actor. As a writer, his first play, The Trip Back Down, was produced on Broadway in 1977. Later he became a resident playwright at New York's Circle Repertory Company.

For a time Bishop was at Paramount Studios where he helped rework several scripts, including Beverly Hills Cop III.

Given Bishop's identification of Facilitators and his film's obvious references to the JFK assassination, I submit that The Package is -- as the title of this thread indicates -- the most important JFK assassination-related film to date.

Thanks to IMDb for background on Bishop.

FWIW: Its my understanding (from speaking with certain screenwriters and producers supposedly "in the know,") that The Package was originally much more explicitly connected to the JFK assassination. But then changes were requested, and there were rewrites to change certain particulars to fuzz it up.

But the essential linkage is still there, and rather obvious--especially to students of the JFK case.

DSL
6/23/13; 6 PM PDT
Los Angeles, California

[Sandy Sherbrook]

I saw the film in Australia on pay-TV recently and naturally noticed the resemblance to the JFK assassination

It also called to mind The Parallax View (1974)

I'd never heard of the movie before to be quite frank

I imagine that it was originally a commercial flop or received limited release

The ending seemed to be pointing towards a sequel that didn't eventuate

Actors were good - great to see John Heard in something meaty

I recall c.1980 he was being pushed as a leading man

[Charles Drago]

And its superficial plot has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Kennedy assassination.

The Package, released in 1989, was written by John Bishop and directed by Andrew Davis. Cast includes Gene Hackman, Tommy Lee Jones, Joanna Cassidy, John Heard, Dennis Franz, and Pam Grier.

Hackman plays a US Army sergeant assigned to bring criminal soldier Jones back to the states for incarceration. Prior to that assignment, Hackman was involved in providing security for a NATO conference at which high-ranking American and Soviet military and intelligence officers were in attendance to negotiate the terms of an upcoming summit meeting. The unnamed leaders clearly were modeled on George Herbert Walker Bush and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev.

Hackman gets Jones back to D.C., but before they can leave the airport Hackman is mugged. When he regains consciousness, Jones is gone.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm going to condense the plot, so if you haven't seen the film, I STRONGLY urge you to do so.

Jones's character is a world-class sniper who has been sent to Chicago to assassinate one or both of the leaders. Part of the plot -- brilliantly depicted -- will be the patsying of a young man who is led to believe that he's on an important intelligence mission to infiltrate a group of White militants hostile to detente. He is given a job on a high floor of an office building overlooking the podium on which some sort of Cold War-ending treaty will be signed.

The most important element of The Package is its depiction of the conspiracy's high-ranking Facilitators: military and intelligence offices whose masters are above Cold-War differences.

Writer John Dickson Bishop was born in Ohio in 1929 and died of cancer in December, 2006 in Bad Heilbrunn, Germany.

Bishop began his career as an actor. As a writer, his first play, The Trip Back Down, was produced on Broadway in 1977. Later he became a resident playwright at New York's Circle Repertory Company.

For a time Bishop was at Paramount Studios where he helped rework several scripts, including Beverly Hills Cop III.

Given Bishop's identification of Facilitators and his film's obvious references to the JFK assassination, I submit that The Package is -- as the title of this thread indicates -- the most important JFK assassination-related film to date.

Thanks to IMDb for background on Bishop.

FWIW: Its my understanding (from speaking with certain screenwriters and producers supposedly "in the know,") that The Package was originally much more explicitly connected to the JFK assassination. But then changes were requested, and there were rewrites to change certain particulars to fuzz it up.

But the essential linkage is still there, and rather obvious--especially to students of the JFK case.

DSL
6/23/13; 6 PM PDT
Los Angeles, California

To reiterate for the sake of emphasis:

The most important element of The Package is its depiction of the conspiracy's high-ranking Facilitators: military and intelligence offices whose masters are above Cold-War differences.

Interesting info, David. One wonders if an original treatment and/or first draft script is available -- perhaps in a collection of Bishop's papers.

Bishop ... Ahhh, Loki never sleeps.