It’s quite possible to disagree with his politics or his theories, but the presentation of Garrison and Stone’s beliefs are absolutely mesmerizing and get an even more detailed explanation with a just-released two-disc director’s cut that adds in even more education about the events of Nov. 22, 1963.

From the very beginning of “JFK,” Stone gets his blending of fact and fiction across. The opening scenes (buffered by the score of John Williams and the voice-over of Martin Sheen) show the events leading up to the assassination of Kennedy, starting with Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address and leading up to the fateful motorcade. This montage blends actual archived footage with reenacted scenes from actors.

And then when the president is killed, Stone does a perfect job capturing the varied reactions across the country. From a hardened private eye sarcastically toasting the act to a lone voice of approval being drowned out to the stunned spectators in Dallas.

And as time progresses and suspects come and die, Garrison (Kevin Costner) starts to look deeper than what the Warren Report’s initial findings of what actually happened. Garrison and his team track leads, recreate days of suspects’ lives and press towards some answers.

That search leads through lowlife David Ferrie (Joe Pesci, who tacks on a New Orleans accent to his usual snarl) and ends up at Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), a mysterious man with an alias and possible CIA ties, as a possible assassin of Kennedy.

The four years between the assassination and Shaw’s trial feature plenty of intriguing twists, heightening suspense and engaging developments over the middle portion of the movie.

But Stone’s brilliance comes to fruition during the trial of Shaw. Stone pushes through the attacks and counter-attacks of the early stages of the trial in a rapid-fire pace, hitting only the highlights of the early procedure. But during Garrison’s closing arguments the film hits a visceral high. There’s the extremely controversial footage of the Zapruder film, which despite repeated viewings over the last decade is still one of the most powerful images in any medium. The repeated viewing of the image during Garrison’s closing just shock the viewer without being too exploitative. And the editing, pace and passion of Garrison’s closing argument turn a potentially dull segment into one of the fastest and most compelling film sequences in recent memory.

The remastering of the film adds to its blended moods. There’s an overwhelming feeling of grayness to the film which just seems to add to Stone’s sense of paranoia in the film.

And despite the broad pictures painted in “JFK” and the amazing array of talent in the film (there’s appearances by everyone from Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau to Gary Oldman and Wayne Knight), there still needs to be Costner’s Garrison to hold things together. And Costner greatly succeeds as the film’s reference point and crusader.

Just as many opinions of the film are based around feelings towards Stone’s views on the assassination, the extras on the re-release also lean heavily on Stone’s personal beliefs.

Stone, who also served as co-writer on the film, provides a very detailed and calculated commentary track that serves the two-fold purpose of detailing the work and integration of media that went into the film and also further rationalizing his beliefs of a conspiracy.

And while the director’s cut of the film features some nice moments (such as a recreation piece of Garrison’s “Tonight Show” appearance), the deleted and extended scenes reveal a more heavy-handed movie that could have been made. While scenes such as Jack Ruby getting injected with cancer cells and an eerie scene at the grave of Lee Harvey Oswald may have spun the movie in a lesser direction, they still show Stone’s beautiful film-making skills.

Stone’s education comes in the form of an in-depth documentary that examines every angle of the assassination. Covering everything from the journalistic take on the event to the progression of the trial, the documentary gets the take from experts, witnesses and actors in completing the look at the events of the assassination.

No matter how much Stone’s opinions on the events and conspiracy theories differ from each viewer’s, the masterful look of the film and painstaking attention to detail make “JFK” a more than fine piece of entertainment, if not exactly history.

“JFK”: AB

DVD features: AB,”Matthew T. Olson”

”