This is a very interesting, very engrossing documentary about a figure who was on the News daily forty years ago. Hard to believe now, the most anyone born after 1960 is that he a public figure who mysteriously disappeared. But as one interviewee says in this piece, "He was a product of his times, and his times were a product of him." He was a magnetic, energetic figure, who, and, thanks to Martin Scorcese's movie The Irishman, now in the public's view again. This documentary is a good introduction of Hoffa's life for these people.
This documentary is about his disappearance, and it also a story of his life and times, of the people with whom he did business, socialized and opposed. What this documentary offers, however, perhaps unintentionally, is a history of the significant events of the last half Century - JFK's assassination, Cuba, Watergate - presented in a compelling and illuminating way. The names run like a who's-who of recent US history of the 60s and 70s. Robert Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon, various figures from the American Mafia, and most of all President John Kennedy. One take-away from the documentary is that if there is any person who is connected with all these historical figures, it is Jimmy Hoffa.
The information in this documentary cuts through all the chaff of wild theories about the assassination of John Kennedy. When viewed through the life - and death -- of Jimmy Hoffa that tragic event and those events which follow are put in a perspective which makes sense. As a result, it dispels the belief that the assassinations of President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy was the result of a lone nut.
But mainly this is a documentary that tries to pin down exactly what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. All the usual suspects and theories are examined. Archival footage, of course, is used to supplement the explanations. The documentary does not arrive at any conclusions, and as an interviewee said, we will likely never know for sure what happened. You will be left wondering yourself, not only what happened to Jimmy Hoffa but all those people, famous of not, who knew him.
