'Kennedys' fails to inform or inspire

By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY

When the story behind a show is more interesting than the story it's telling, you have a problem.

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  AP

  Camelot comes to TV: Greg Kinnear stars as John F. Kennedy in the controversial miniseries The Kennedys.

AP

Camelot comes to TV: Greg Kinnear stars as John F. Kennedy in the controversial miniseries The Kennedys.

And when that tale you're bleeding of life and interest is that of the Kennedys, an American story of triumph and tragedy so powerful, it almost rises to the level of Greek myth, the problem is compounded to an extent that becomes almost insurmountable.

Considering this eight-hour miniseries' troubled past ? made for History, then dumped on Reelz amid accusations of bias and inaccuracies ? let's start by saying what The Kennedys isn't. It's not a polemic or a conservative hatchet job (an unfair assumption reached by some because producer Joel Surnow has a reputation for leaning right). Indeed, while no personal problem is left unexposed, it is a relatively sympathetic portrayal of John, Jackie and Bobby, and a fairly complimentary view of JFK's stint in office.

Unfortunately, it's also not particularly absorbing. Written by Stephen Kronish, The Kennedys has nothing much new to tell, and tells it over and over again.

It's also trying to tell too much, stretching back from father Joe's (Tom Wilkinson, who makes Joe the movie's most compelling character) ambassadorship to an hour past JFK's assassination, to rocket through Bobby's (an also excellent Barry Pepper) post-JFK life and death. You're left with a flash-card view of history, with the big events ? the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis? sandwiched between Jackie's brief dependence on "booster shots" and Jack's life-long dependence on sex.

As for Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes, both may be fine actors (he, in particular, has done good work on film). But the sad truth is, if either had the charisma or star wattage needed to capture JFK and Jackie, neither would be available for a miniseries that started on History and ended up on Reelz.

Reelz, Sunday, 8 p.m. ET
* * out of four

Ultimately, the fatal flaw in The Kennedys isn't that it's liberal, conservative, flattering or unflattering. It's that it's so focused on the family's private foibles that the public triumphs get lost in the mix. Obviously there was more to JFK than we saw at the time, but what we saw inspired millions when he was alive, and sent even more into mourning when he died. There's no way to watch this project and get any understanding of how that could have happened. And a miniseries that doesn't capture that aspect of the Kennedys hasn't captured them at all.

Wherever it airs.

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