The Assassination

I was lucky enough to find myself at a small screening of this picture and having no expectations, was blown away by what I saw. I felt a knot growing in my chest with every passing minute and it didn't let go until the credits rolled, when I had to take a couple deep breaths and heard the girl next to me doing the same.

What first struck me was the fragility Penn brings to his character. He's a man I'm used to seeing as well, a man's man, and to see him timid and frustrated, swallowing so much emotion in ever bigger chunks...it was remarkable to watch, his performance a credit to director Niels Mueller as well. Penn deserves another award, Noami Watts and Don Cheadle are also excellent, and Michael Wincott, as Penn's brother, makes his one scene memorable.

Niels and Kevin Kennedy have done a truly masterful job with the script, bringing unique voices and characters to life such as I rarely see on screen. Neils certainly doesn't look like a first timer behind the camera. Much of his framing feels emotionally

claustrophobic, while a few hand-held sequences made me think I was an unwilling, unwitting voyeur.

All in all this is a delicately crafted yet weighty and powerful film. I believe it gets released soon in New York and LA, but as Penn's Sam Bicke character might say "The system is unfair and everyone has a right to see this movie" so email ThinkFilm and tell them you want it in your city, too. Kudos to ThinkFIlm for getting behind this movie, they have another festival favorite of mine, "Kontroll" coming out in the spring.

I take my hat off to these filmmakers for their outstanding work.

Much like the Joel Schumacher film of 1993 starring Michael Douglas, this film is about an ordinary man with an ordinary job who is driven to insanity by the injustice and unfairness of his world. While both films teach us that no matter how solid it seems, everything will crumble under enough pressure there is no humor to TAORN. In fact it's the most depressing film like...ever.

I don't know what made me go see TAORN. I'd heard nothing of it but I like Sean Penn and Naomi Watts (they were in the brilliant 21 Grams together) and everything else at the cinema I had either seen or looked crap (Man of the House, Miss Congenatailiality 2) so I chose this, hoping it to be a dark horse. It was well made and acted but it's really, really heavy and I would not recommend it to anyone bored with their jobs or lives in general.

Sean Penn plays the true story of Sam Bicke, a furniture salesman who is estranged from his family, his wife, his children, his colleagues...basically everything. He sees the fatcats around him growing richer and richer while he rots away in his inescapable reality of nothingness. He blames Dick Nixon for his woes, the fattest of all fatcats, the man at the top of the food chain. He believes that if he kills Nixon he might be able to make the slightest of changes to the racist, lying world.

Of course he failed, but watching Sam Bicke crash and burn is a very painful thing to do. What makes it more distressing is that there is never a reason given as to why everyone deserted him. It gave the impression that anyone can be so callous and uncaring and that anyone can be driven to such insanity and desperate measures.

Not a film to see with your girlfriend that's for damn sure but certainly an impressive, if tough to watch, piece of work.

Thanks to my keen eye, I (one of few, I believe) caught that free tickets to above movie were being given away, and would be followed by a Q & A with the director, producer (the guy behind Y Tu Mama Tambien) and Sean Penn, who is the lead of the movie, and takes a large majority of the screen time. The movie comes to select U.S. theaters on Dec. 29th, and the widens. I'll mention the questions later, but first the review.

A very good, yet flawed film. I use the term film not to be pretentious, but because it is primarily a film, not a movie in the blockbustery sense. It was produced independently, with the documenting the assassin, Sam Byck (Sean Penn.) It focuses on the year before he attempted (true story) to kill President Nixon in February, 1974 by flying a plane into the White House. However, the main thrust of the film was not politics, but character development.

Sean Penn is clearly one of the best actors today, very much in his prime. He once again proves it here. Byck is a man separated from his family, unsuccessful in his careers, and is marginalized from his life. We watch him obtain a sense of hopelessness, as he watches his dreams crumble away, as he blames the American system for his demise. Similar to Taxi Driver, in a lot of ways. Outstanding portrayal.

The only negative was the short span of the movie. It was 95 minutes, and left too little time for back story. There is not nearly enough exploration of how Byck got to the point where he could be pushed to kill. Another half hour of explaining his character would have made for a pantheon-level movie, instead of just a rather good one.

I saw this film at Cannes and thought it was fantastic. There is not a flawed moment in the entire film. The performances are amazing and any intelligent film fan will see Sean Penn's performance as one of his best if not his very best ever.

Additionally, Naomi Watts is outstanding. She disappears entirely in her role as Marie and is almost unrecognizable from anything she's ever done in the past. Jack Thompson, the great Australian actor of Breaker Morant and Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith fame is stunning. I can't believe he hasn't been used more in the United States. Not to mention the always great Don Cheadle and others...

The story itself is chilling. This is one relevant film that everyone should see. I don't want to give anything away but suffice it to say that this film discusses with great depth and insight issues that are burning in everyone's minds these days -- terrorism, 9-11, powerlessness as a voting public, etc., etc.

This film is gripping from start to finish. It is a carefully crafted character dissection that takes you inside the mind and heart of Penn's character. The film couldn't have succeeded without Penn's brilliance. The art direction and cinematography are stand out as well as the editing which keeps the film moving at a very assured pace.

This film is as good as they come. It's the kind of film they used to make and I was thrilled to see that some filmmakers and actors had the courage to tackle such complexities as are tackled here.

Roger Ebert calls "Nixon" one of the best films at this year's Cannes film festival...Le Monde in France called it a near masterpiece and in Rome's largest paper they wondered why this film instead of Fahrenheit 911 wasn;'t garnering all the attention. I agree with all of them. Amazing what the director and cast were able to pull off, simply amazing.

This film is an absolute gem and a must see for any intelligent film-goer....It will become a classic...guaranteed.

Just saw THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON last night at an AFI screening. The film is absolutely stunning.

Niels Mueller has such a sure and masterful hand in directing that belies the fact that this is his theatrical directorial debut. He directs with a flair that is never gimmicky and the film is pitch perfect without a single false note (helped in part by the tight script by Mueller and Kevin Kennedy and the elegant editing). The scenes hum with a slowburn intensity and gradually build up a momentum that lunges to the film's explosive final act.

This young director is one to watch.

Sean Penn gave a powerful and nuanced performance that explores the whole range of his acting personas. This IS the towering performance of his career. Excellent supporting work from Naomi Watts, Don Cheadle, Jack Thompson and a scene-stealing Michael Wincott.