The Assassination of Richard Nixon 
Directed & Written by: Niels Mueller
Starring: Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Jack Thompson, Don Cheadle, Michael Wincott, Mykelti Williamson.
Country: USA

       

Two and a half hand guns 

Reviewed by Hal Gray

I'm Not A Crook.

In the winter of 1974 a man by the name of Sam Byck had the intention to kill Richard Nixon. (A cynic might say ‘join the club'.) He fails at the attempt miserably, just as he's failed at everything else in his life up to that point. The fact that nobody remembers him or the incident is likely due to him never getting closer to Nixon than his image on a television set. That he does himself and others great harm is the tragedy of the piece.

Since The Assassination of Richard Nixon is ‘based on a true story' we, of course, don't know how far we can trust the story as it's laid out or what is a dramatisation or isn't. We may never know what drove Byck over the edge, however Director/Writer Niels Mueller provides a credible scenario. That it is entirely mundane underscores the tragedy, but unfortunately it doesn't make for compelling moviemaking.
 
The sticking point for anti-hero Sam Bicke (the last name is altered for legal reasons) is that what sets him aside from then President Nixon is the dishonour in telling a lie. Much is made of Bicke believing himself a victim of capitalist politics, but the tinder point for him is that everyone around him—his about-to-be ex-wife, his brother, his business partner, and his present boss—are all willing to play with the truth to get along and to make the almighty buck. Not the least of these is Nixon, who, engulfed in the Watergate scandal, is a perfect symbol of calumny for Bicke. (Nixon only appears on TV giving White House press conferences, the last containing his infamous ‘I am not a crook' speech.) Bicke, then, sees himself as the only honourable man in a corrupt world. More importantly, he believes he's being punished for it.

‘Assassination' is similar to Requiem for a Dream in that it starts at a drastic point then descends straight to hell from there. At the beginning, Bicke is separated from his wife and kids, at odds with his brother, and stuck in a dead-end job as a furniture salesman. At the climax, he has a choice to believe in his own lies or to confront them. He goes with the former and that leads him to his final destructive path.

Sean Penn breathes every inch of life into Sam Bicke as he can. But he has to fight a bare-bones story and a saccharine, repetitive sound track all the way. Naomi Watts has not much to do as the bored wife married to a loser. Don Cheadle is solid as always, in this case as Bicke's hard-put-upon business partner. Aussie actor/producer Jack Thompson (Breaker Morant) is brilliant as the oleaginous furniture boss who jerks Bicke's chain. (Why do the Aussies do better American accents than the Americans?) The cameo by Michael Wincott as Bicke's brother is very strong.

Of course there is never a bad time to make a good film, but The Assassination of Richard Nixon doesn't seem to resonant with the times.

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