Movie Review: Who Killed John O'Neill

Who Killed John O'Neill is a new movie written and performed by Ryan Thurston, produced and directed by Ty Rauber, and featuring a wonderfully haunting soundtrack by Brett Rauber. No, you haven't heard of any of them. Not even IMDB has heard of them yet. The only reason I mention their names is to applaud their courage in presenting the information that they present in the movie.

I suppose that you are wondering who John O'Neill is, who would want him dead, and why. John O'Neill was an FBI anti-terrorism agent who had been on Osama bin Laden and al Quaeda's trail for quite some time. Special Agent O'Neill died in the World Trade Center (WTC) collapse on September 11, 2001, almost as if Osama himself were targeting Mr. O'Neill specifically. Ironically, he had recently left the FBI and taken a job as head of security for the WTC. As for who would want him dead and why, the movie does a much better job of connecting the dots than I can.

While tracing the trail of blood from the proverbial knife in John O'Neill's back to his killers, six different characters expose a number of disturbing connections regarding September 11. All six charcters are portrayed by Ryan Thurston, and represent different sides of the story in the argument over what really happened on 9/11. The six characters include "man," the main character, "paranoid," the paranoid, over-reactive conspiracy nut quick to jump to conclusions, "cynic," the cynical disbeliever who forces the other characters to justify their conclusions, "laptop," the computer nerd who verifies data, "philosopher," who jumps in as the devil's advocate, and "history," who backs the conclusions with historical facts.

Although the main focus of this film is 9/11, the six characters effectively unravel the tangled web of scandalous events going on in our government from the JFK assassination to the Oklahoma City bombing to the USS Cole and the first WTC attack. Even though the act of mentioning this whole line of events in the same sentence often screams "conspiracy nut," once you watch the movie and understand how the puzzle pieces fit together, you will give it a second thought.