Review of Death of a President (2006) by Dave H — 23 Mar 2008

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.