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.

"Killing Jimmy Hoffa" is a window to a time nowadays hard to imagine. A time when worker's rights were fought out on the streets, where the mafia gangs ruled the streets and one of the most influential men could just disappear over night.

It is, of course, hard to set a documentary around such a case, in which most details are still unknown to the public. A lot of what is provided is actually guess work. Still, through the choice of experts, you get a sense for what kind of a man Jimmy Hoffa was, in which company he acted and what's likable to have led to his sudden disappearance.

As much as this film resolves around the mystery surrounding the Hoffa case, it is at the same time historical evidence, depicting the different layers of cooperation and dependence between politics and underworld. In the end we aren't still able to solve the mystery, but we do learn a lot about how it could rise.

This documentary is okay. It's about a 6.5 but I had to gig it a couple stars for it's characterization of Robert F. Kennedy. Dr. Thaddeus Russell says that Bobby was someone who believed in 'noblesse oblige', that people with a better situation in life have an obligation to help out people who have less than them. He goes on to say that RFK 'looked down' on people and thought they were 'inferior' to him. That is complete nonsense. Yes, RFK believed in noblesse oblige but he didn't look down on anyone.

You can't tell me a farm worker in West Virginia has it the same as a rich family in Massachusetts. He was seeing the world for what it was and wanting EVERYBODY in U.S to have a good quality of life, education, access to healthcare and the ability to pursue what used to be called "The American Dream". He was doing what was expected of politicians of the day. He was working for the 'common good'. Right-wing media in this country has totally destroyed the common good and replaced it with bitter partisanship. But it did exist in RFK's time and he was a very good person for attempting to serve it.