Death of a President

"Death of a President" is a truly original and intriguing 'future documentary' about an event that hasn't happened yet. It is a reflection on the events surrounding the October 2007 assassination of George W. Bush in a Chicago hotel.

That future time is portrayed with an escalation of the anti-war fervor and a growing concern over the dangers posed by North Korea.

The film flips between staged scenes, real footage & documentary style interviews. It does a fine job of seamlessly blending those pieces to create a very plausible "precreation".

It is interesting watching this film on October 9th, 2006... a day which began with news of North Korea's first nuclear test. The first twenty minutes of the film are dotted with mentions of that scenario.

There are some chilling scenes in this film... especially early on, when you get a real sense of the protesters being contained and beaten down by Chicago police in full riot gear.

After a political speech in the hotel, the President is ushered down a standard meet-and-greet rope-line. It is at this point that the film lives up to its name. Shots are fired and one of the most frenzied scenes of any film this year ensues. Bush is thrown into a waiting limo, which speeds off to the nearest hospital. The crowd at the rope line is panicked beyond recognition. The FBI launches into gear. The media machine revs its engines. And the Chicago skyline lights the night air as an eerie sense of history-in-the-making takes hold.

Later that night, newscasters announce the death of George W. Bush and the film transposes into an FBI procedural... A virtual whodunit for us viewers. It feels very much like a David Mamet plot crossed with an Oliver Stone concept. It truly is a wonderfully imaginative idea played out with great skill and cinematic artistry.

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OK - The secondary question in reviewing this film is this... Is it wrong? Is it morally questionable to have such a premise be the focal point of a film? Is it in bad taste?

Well, I have always been one to follow Roger Ebert's mandate that, "It is not always what a film is about, but how it is about it." I try not to pass judgment on the subject, but on the skill of the film itself.

However, this is a very brazen subject. Even for a Bush-hating liberal like me, this approaches the line, if indeed it doesn't cross it. It comes dangerously close to going too far.

That being said, I think it stops short of that line and delivers a legitimate scenario that merits people's attention. I believe this film earns the right to touch on this subject. It is a quality film and should not be thought of as a sensationalistic attempt to shock audiences.

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Back to the plot... The film analyzes the hunt for suspects and forensic evidence. It follows the investigation all the way to a murder trial. I will not detail the story any further.

What this film does brilliantly is to shade the discussion toward issues like the Patriot Act, Homeland Security futility, the right to privacy, the right to a fair trial, and the apathy of the American public to seek truth and justice. It hints at Governmental manipulation, a wag the dog mentality. It tells personal stories of civilians and soldiers and suspects and Presidential aides. This film has a tremendously broad scope considering the budget.

"Death of a President" meanders patiently toward a conclusion you will probably not expect. This is a very thoughtful film that wants us to think carefully about the consequences of future terrorism. It asks us to contemplate the futility of such a crime and the repercussions it would have on future generations. In fact, it very much condemns this scenario as the worst thing that could happen.

I was riveted by this film. It is not just a scream for attention with a daring title. It has something very important to say and it says it very eloquently. That it dramatizes the assassination of a sitting President only adds to the palpable tension and urgency of its message. I think that "Death of a President" is one of the best and most important films of 2006. Go out of your way to see it as soon as you can!

© Written by TC Candler IndependentCritics.com

A lot of these reviews seem to be by either US Americans who have yet to see this film, and are so insecure about their patriotism they have to come on to IMDb and slate it, or seemingly by people who made up their mind before watching it and refuse to change their stance after doing so.

The point of the film is NOT some perverse fantasy about killing the current President of the United States of America, George Walker Bush Jr. People who say otherwise either haven't seen it or are wanting to purposely misguide you.

It is a drama in the style of a documentary (one that would air on television rather then a cinema screen) that looks at a possible run up to an assassination of the president, as well as how the investigation might be handled afterwards with the involvement of Dick Cheney (who would take over the Presidency if George Bush was assassinated).

The drama does not dwell or linger on the death of the president at all, in fact apart from Bush being crammed into his presidential car by secret service and whizzed away at high speed, that is all the viewer sees. You then find out about his death from mock news reports. Hardly a sordid gratification from a 'perverse' director.

The drama is convincing as a documentary by realistic interviews with decent unknown actors playing their roles just right without hyperbole as could quite easily be the case.

Without spoiling exact plot points, the drama makes a point in how the government may be more interested in finding a suspect and making the evidence fit the profile because it is more politically advantageous then actually running an investigation to find out exactly what happened, and draw suspects that way. Considering the current climate where seemingly the Geneva Convention is open to interpretation, and restrictions on Habeus Corpus, this suggestion is not far fetched in the slightest.

It aired on 'More 4' in the UK, a channel from Channel 4 television, and I'd imagine it would air on an American network at some point, or maybe a limited screening at cinemas if the US networks lose their bottle.

So for my US brothers and sisters, consider what I've written, and go SEE it and decide for yourself. That's what the freedom as a US Citizen entitles you to do.

I felt this film fell short of achieving anything truly monumental- aside, of course, from a controversial title and subject matter. A piece of cinematic history it is not, and my opinion is that once the hype dies down and this film slips into 6.2/10 mediocrity people will soon forget all about it.

The 'whodunit' feel to this film, using documentary-style interviews with the people involved with the investigation to unfold the story, kept this film interesting. This technique aided in preventing it from being "just another documentary" because the outcome of this fictional future-event is unknown to the viewer, unlike most historical documentaries.

DOAP fails to talk about the worldwide and/or nationwide repercussions of such a devastating event as DOAP attempts to examine, which was disappointing and clearly beyond the intended scope of the film.

In my opinion, I'm glad I had a chance to attend the world premiere and it's definitely a film worth checking out when it comes to your video store, but DOAP is no more of a "must-see" than any other enjoyable, but ultimately forgettable, piece of fiction.

I was very skeptical before seeing this movie. Title and premise of "Death of a President" led me, and probably others, to expect either a shallow Bush-bashing hack-job or some sort of bizarre, "24"-like "we against the evildoers" hero-epic in a cheap documentary costume.

I'm happy to report: I was wrong. "Death of a President" is a very well written, performed and directed drama in the style of a modern (and hardly opinionated) documentary. And most surprisingly, it isn't really a movie about George W Bush.

It was a very smart move to make it a "mock" documentary, since it keeps the viewer on a skeptical distance to all the protagonists, so the movie doesn't push the audience into immediately placing the characters into the "good" and "bad" categories like it would be the case with a drama done in a conventional narrative. That gives room to examine the characters different motives and actions without having to rely on pressing the emotion-buttons too much. Of course this approach relies on convincing performances from all actors involved (mabybe even more so than with a conventional drama) to keep the illusion alive of actually watching a documentary.... over-acting could have been a disaster for this movie, and i'm very glad cast and director avoided that pitfall. Fine performances all around.

Now, to the obvious elephant in the room (and the reason why this movie is so controversial): Why did the makers of the movie not just have a fictional president killed? Shock value? Some kind of perverse joy in getting rid of the real President? I don't think so.

First of all, having the real President Bush in the movie obviously makes this theoretical exercise just more authentic and convincing. And more importantly, the viewer is forced to place himself somewhere among the characters, to place his sympathy and antipathy bets just based on preconceived notions, so to speak. I doubt there are many people who don't have a clear opinion about George W Bush and his administration (I certainly have mine. And in the interest of full disclosure, I'm no fan, to say the least). But that opinion (whatever it is) is important for the movie to get it's point across: it's the setup to play effectively with the viewers prejudices.

"Death of a President" manages to make you look beyond the stereotypes and makes a solid point about the misleading force of preconceived notions (for the viewer as well as the characters in the movie). The tag line "Do not rush to judge" is well chosen. The movie in particular makes a valid point about the worrying tendency in the US (and the world in general, I cant think of any society that's not to some degree affected by this "disease") of more and more dumbing everything down to "us versus them".

Be it the inflation of the word "Terrorist" as a magic opinion maker, (and drifting away from the movie for a second) be it Republicans versus Democrats, be it the insane shouting matches that pass as talk shows these days or be it the bizarre notion of an inevitable "clash of the civilizations".

The movie isn't perfect though. For example, the character of Bushs speech writer was a bit over the top in her praise for the man, while the protesting crowds remained rather stereotypical. Also, some doctored shots didn't quite live up to the otherwise impressive technical level of this production.

Yet "Death of a Presindent" offers a bit of much needed perspective on the Terrorism-issue; it sure does it by rather drastic means but it doesn't fail to deliver. Of course for me, as a distant observer of the USA, the fact that the actual President gets "assasinated" in this movie doesn't have quite the emotional punch as it must have for Americans. So I can understand the very mixed reactions it gets from reviewers.

But if you feel up to it, go see it yourself and then make up your mind, instead of rushing to judgment based on title and plot outline.

Death Of A President is an excellent film and is in no way anti-American or Anti-George Bush. It has great cinematography, an interesting and very plausible story line, and exceptional performances. Whether you're left, right, center, or none of the above, this is a a very good film for the thinking movie-goer.

The controversy, of course, stems from the use of the current U.S. President as the victim of an assassination. The assassination scene itself flies by and can't be more than 2-3 seconds long, so fast, in fact, you can be forgiven if you miss it altogether. It's what precedes and follows that scene that is the meat of the movie. Film footage of Bush and other real political figures is spliced seamlessly into this film, and includes footage of Vice-President Cheney and Mayor Daley of Chicago. None of these real persons are in any way abused or mis-characterized in the film. And the portrayal of fictional FBI agents, Chicago Police officers, and White House and Secret Service officials is, if anything, mostly very complimentary to them. This film does not do a hatchet job on anyone

What the use of real characters in a fictitious scenario allows the film-makers to do is to let the movie-goer realize that real actions have real consequences. And by putting real persons into a totally fictitious plot the film-makers can develop an accurate scenario - something that still can't be done with the Kennedy assassination of more that 40 years ago. We can't present an accurate portrayal of that real event even now because of the doubts cast on the whole event by the actions of our own government. The USG botched the assassination investigation so badly with its lies of omission and commission, that we will probably never know that whole truth about what happened that day in 1963. With the fictional scenario of Death of a President, though, we know exactly how things play out.

Whether you are a President, an assassin, an FBI agent, or just a movie-goer, realizing that actions have consequences - often unforeseen consequences, of course - is something we all need to be reminded of from time to time.