Death of a President (2006)

Director:

Gabriel Range

Writers:

Simon Finch (writer)
Gabriel Range (writer)

Release Date:

21 diciembre 2006 (South Korea)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Frase comercial:

Do not rush to judge.

Plot:

Years after the assassination of President George W. Bush in Chicago, an investigative documentary examines that as-yet-unsolved crime. |

Plot Keywords:

Iraq War | Falsely Accused | Sniper | Courtroom | Demonstration

Awards:

Won Primetime Emmy. Another 5 wins & 1 nomination

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Death of a President

Cast

Hend Ayoub	...	Zahra Abi Zikri
Brian Boland	...	Larry Stafford
Becky Ann Baker	...	Eleanor Drake
Robert Mangiardi	...	Greg Turner
Jay Patterson	...	Sam McCarthy
Jay Whittaker	...	Frank Molini
Michael Reilly Burke	...	Robert H. Maguire
James Urbaniak	...	Dr. James Pearn
Neko Parham	...	Casey Claybon (as M. Neko Parham)
Seena Jon	...	Samir Masri
Christian Stolte	...	John Rucinski
Chavez Ravine	...	Marianne Claybon
Patricia Buckley	...	Dawn Newton
Patrick Clear	...	Adam Brock
Malik Bader	...	Jamal Abu Zikri

También conocida como:

D.O.A.P. (Canada: English title) (festival title)

MPAA:

Rated R for brief violent images.

Duración:

90 min

País:

UK

Idioma:

English | Arabic

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sonido:

Dolby Digital | DTS

Clasificación:

Japan:PG-12 | South Korea:12 | UK:12 | Netherlands:12 | Australia:M | Brazil:12 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:NC-16 | Finland:K-11 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Borough Film

Trivialidades:

The footage used from Dick Cheney's eulogy for Bush was actually edited footage from his eulogy at the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan in 2004.

Goofs:

Continuity: The archive footage meant to depict President Bush greeting people on the rope line outside a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago was actually taken from an event at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. While the speech in the movie takes place in the evening, President Bush greets one of the people on the rope line by saying "Good morning."

Quotes:

[end title cards]
Title card: One year after his conviction, Jamal Abu Zikri has still not been granted leave to appeal.
Title card: He remains on death row in Statevill Correctional Center.
Title card: Since recording the interview for this film Robert H Maguire has resigned as Head of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI.
Title card: USA PATRIOT III, introduced in the days after the assassination, has since been turned into permanent law.
Title card: It has granted investigators unprecedented powers of detention and surveillance, and further expanded the powers of the executive branch.

Death of a President

First off, ignore all the hype and crap that been spouted about how this film is making money out of the idea of seeing George W. Bush assassinated. Don't watch this if you want a political film pointing out how much Bush did/did not deserve it. Reading some of the forums and responses from uptight Americans bitching about people daring to comment of American politics in a questioning way just saddens me. What we have here is a well made and thought provoking piece of what might happen, in today's society and with public feeling the way it is, if President Bush was assassinated.

In fact, what director Gabriel Range manages to pull off very well, in my opinion, is actually managing to show as little of the actual "event" as possible. We get the build up, see the footage of the shooting in real time, with no irritating slow-motion or multiple angles, and just move immediately onto the aftermath.

Range questions what political reactions there would be, how the media would react, how the investigation would move, and each time he shows a scenario that is both shocking and depressingly believable. He shows the possibility of Cheney trying to manoeuvre events to allow him to move on Syria, only to be forced to back due to lack of any real evidence. He highlights the question of whether the FBI looking for Middle Eastern suspects before white suspects is racism or common sense? How the media immediately jumps on any piece of information and starts presenting it as fact. How any response would be tempered by anger at what had happened, and rightly so. Shows an Administration desperate to stick the assassin in the realm of Terrorism to back up their own policies.

But the backbone of the film is not to point out any one person or aspect that would effect all of this, but how the current atmosphere and the point that the world has brought itself would effect responses to such events. As soon as Bush is declared dead, it seems to have been far more important to have done something and found someone to blame, and more particularly to blame Terrorism, than to take time and care to make sure everything is certain. Zahra Abu Zikri is convicted due to the fact that people wanted him to be guilty more than the flimsy evidence put against him. As his lawyer says; "The moment they (the media) said 'Al Qaeda Assassin' he was guilty" and forensic experts were forced to work backwards. "We say he's guilty, find evidence to back us up on this." We're shown a US becoming obsessed that the killer had to be backed by terrorism, totally refusing to believe that an American would want to kill their own President.

Yes, you do always have to be careful about portraying the death of any living person, but this film would not have had the same effect if Range had used a fictional President, just as much as if he'd make up a fictional country to replace America. The Bush Administration is a vital part in this whole story. I understand why people might get upset, but they shouldn't use that as a reason to shout down political discussion.

Ultimately this film is what I really wish it had been seen as from the beginning, an excellent discussion on a "what-if" scenario, and I happen to believe this style of film is a vital part in discussing global politics. (See Peter Watkins The War Game for the best example of this sub-genre) Unfortunately, like Range's past works this film has been hijacked by calls of 'scare mongering'. Should we ignore problems if they we are scared by the outcome? Or just if they make us see a truth we don't want to admit? What you should notice by the end is however much you agree or disagree with the idea or the subject matter, the situation at the end of the film is unnervingly believable. That truth and reason are not the two most important things we look for anymore.