Can Greg Kinnear cut it as JFK?

Geez, talk about inconvenient timing. Just as Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood has been touting the far-fetched claim that conservatives in Hollywood can't reveal their, well, conservativeness, without being in danger of losing their jobs, along comes the news -- via Variety -- that outspoken conservative uber-producer Joel Surnow ("24") has signed an all-star cast to appear in his upcoming miniseries, "The Kennedys." The show, set to run for eight hours on the History Channel next year, landed just as many top actors as Oliver Stone got for his biopic, "W.," which debuted in theaters in 2008.

Greg Kinnear will play JFK, with Katie Holmes as Jackie Kennedy, Barry Pepper as Bobby Kennedy and Tom Wilkinson as family titan Joe Kennedy.

When news first surfaced about the project, liberal critics who'd read early drafts of the script lambasted the project for being an unbridled attack on the Kennedy clan. But as I wrote earlier this year, it seems wildly unfair to assume that just because Surnow is a conservative, that he would have a conservative agenda when it comes to portraying history -- especially if you want to have any credibility in defending Oliver Stone's right to make movies about George Bush and Richard Nixon.

I read the scripts myself and thought they were pretty impressive, and certainly well within the bounds of propriety, especially considering the reams of conspiratorial, often sleazy revisionist histories that have been written about JFK's womanizing and the Kennedy family dysfunction. The casting of Kinnear as JFK also makes it hard to believe that Surnow is doing a hatchet job, since if Kinnear is anything, judging from most of his roles, he is the epitome of someone who represents middle-American decency and idealism. It would be hard to imagine JFK coming off as a total heel with Kinnear in the part. I mean, how could you not like a guy who's played both the overwhelmed dad in "Little Miss Sunshine" and open-hearted Philadelphia Eagles football coach Dick Vermeil in "Invincible."

In fact, even if Kinnear might be -- gasp! -- a liberal in real life, I'd argue that the characters he plays often represent conservative values, which might be why Surnow liked the idea of him playing JFK in the first place. I think this is a miniseries that definitely bears watching.

Recent and Related:

CONSERVATIVES SAY THEY HAVE TO 'TALK IN WHISPERS' IN LIBERAL HOLLYWOOD

 THE HISTORY CHANNEL'S JFK MINISERIES: IS IT REALLY RIGHT-WING CHARACTER ASSASSINATION?

Photo: Greg Kinnear at a 2008 screening of the film "Ghost Town." Credit: Evan Agostini / Associated Press

Comments

[anony]

He looks more like Ted Bundy than JFK.

[Shamwow]

Between Katie Holmes and Greg Kinnear, this is horrible casting.

[dpnowell]

"it seems wildly unfair to assume that just because Surnow is a conservative, that he would have a conservative agenda when it comes to portraying history -- especially if you want to have any credibility in defending Oliver Stone's right to make movies about George Bush and Richard Nixon."

That's the most logical statement I've read all day. And I've just come home from school.

[John L Mendez]

Kinnear as JFK is gives new meaning to the meaning of 'hubris.'

What's next? Kinnear in a remake of 'Ghandi'?

[imaboomer]

Greg Kinnear is great. I'd watch him in anything. I recently watched "As Good As It Gets." He was wonderful in that part. I've never seen anyway play pitiful as well as he did.

[Jeff]

Let's look at Kinnear's CV, so to speak...former host of E!'s "Talk Soup" and the early Fox network series, "The Best of the Worst", despite lackluster reviews for his first big film, "Dear God", he bounced back with a string of decent roles, in films like "As Good As It Gets" with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt, "The Matador" with Pierce Brosnan, "Little Miss Sunshine" with Toni Collette, Alan Arkin and Abigail Breslin, and the most recent "The Last Song" with Miley Cyrus(he got better reviews than Miley did). I think he'll do okay.

[JohnRJ08]

Just the fact that the writer felt the need to dwell on Surnow's political ideology is cause for concern here. It's no better than having someone like Oliver Stone re-write history in their own image.

[Helena]

Greg - will you marry me?

[deanarms]

I love Kinnear. He's made truly interesting and unconventional choices. But, to your point of not making JFK to be a total heel, recall that he did play Bob Crane at his oiliest in Paul Schrader's AutoFocus. This could be trouble...

[Richard]

Greg Kinnear is the image of JFK (almost the same facial features, especially the same blue eyes, the toothy smile, the chin and the wide jaw line)
The resemblance is uncanny.
Kinnear was born in 1963 which begs the question.
Is his biological father JFK???
Was his "father" who worked in the US State Department the second shooter on the grassy knoll?
LOL