Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Death Of A President / UK / 2006

This year’s cinematic bete noire, Death Of A President makes for entertaining but increasingly frustrating viewing. It’s an intriguing setup, examining the potential fallout from a successful assassination attempt on George W. Bush, combining stock footage with fake interviews to create an alternate future- history. The first half of the film fulfils expectations, examining in detail the events surrounding the titular event, using familiar images of mass protests and secret service motorcades to conjure a convincing environment for the act to take place. Tension is skilfully maintained, and by the fateful ropeline walk we’re on the edge of our seats. Then the shot, and the rush to the hospital, and the film starts to fall apart.

Instead of focussing on the political or sociological fallout from this cataclysmic event, the film turns into a crude sort of whodunnit, implicating first a protester then a local Syrian man, before finally unveiling the real killer. The vast potential inherent in the story is ignored- Dick Cheney becomes President, but his effect on the world remains largely unexplored, aside from a few rather weak allusions to a new Patriot Act. There are no scenes of mass mourning, racial revenge, the American military backlash that would inevitably follow such an event. There’s not even any attempt to examine how the current international situation would be affected, or the American national psyche.

And the filmmakers have no excuse- such events could easily have been evoked through the use of faked stock footage. This is a failure of imagination and conviction, perhaps even of intellect. There’s no other explanation for the sheer lack of ambition on display here. The intrinsic offensiveness of the premise- staging the death of any living person without their consent is pretty dubious, whoever your subject- could have been mitigated if the film was a genuine, thoughtful work of art, or even just a well crafted thriller. But this is neither, and in the event the whole thing feels rather childish. A wasted opportunity.

by Tom Huddleston | Source: More4
10 Oct 2006 11:27 AM | Comments (1)

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1. Conoroner / 10 October 2006 / 8:45 PM

   you are right on the money. this is comfort food for plutonistas. no roots in reality or even a promising vision of the future. what about the algerian picture? the um battle of algiers. does that make for good fake world cinema? you know, colonies falling apart violently or, better yet, colonies coming together peacefully. thanks in advance!