The Unseen Movie Review

The Assassination Of Richard Nixon

It is a little-known fact that September 11th 2001 was not the first time someone decided to try and fly a jumbo jet into the White House. On February 22nd 1974, failed car tyre salesman Samuel Byck attempted to commandeer a Boeing 747 to assassinate President Richard Nixon. His failure ensured that today he is little-known, remembered as little more than a footnote amongst the chaos of the Watergate scandal which ended Nixon’s presidency six months later.

Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival last year, this film received little attention among the more instantly commercially viable entries of the likes of Shrek 2 and Kill Bill. It is, nonetheless, an interesting – if flawed – take on the all but forgotten events which led to Byck’s failed bid to enter the history books.

Considering the anger that has been caused by the actions of the current US president, it is easy to see why the story of an American apparently driven to extremes by his exasperation with his head of state might appeal. The fact that Byck was also somewhat psychologically deranged – even dressing up as Father Christmas to protest outside the White House in the run-up to his plot – simply makes the character more interesting.

This film is in a way an attempt to put Byck up there with other infamous American crazies of the likes of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, Hollywood murderer Charles Manson or the Waco Massacre’s cult leader David Koresh. It is, however, a level of infamy he almost certainly doesn’t deserve – hence a hefty addition of fictional material, and the alteration of his name to “Bicke”.

Centred around a brilliant central performance by Sean Penn – one of his best to date – the most obvious parallel here is with Martin Scorsese’s classic tale of deranged attempted assassination that is Taxi Driver. Much like Robert De Niro’s similarly-named Travis Bickle in that earlier film, Penn’s Bicke is a socially-withdrawn loner, with little in the way of an appealing personality and a tiny circle of acquaintances. He is a pathetic figure, desperately hoping for a loan to help rebuild his life and restore his relationship with his waitress wife, played by increasingly popular Naomi Watts.

It seems as though first-time director and co-writer Niels Mueller saw Byck/Bicke as one of those classic characters, which scatter American literature and the movies, who has been utterly let down and overlooked by the American Dream. Nixon’s rise from poverty to the highest office in the land, in contrast, was in many ways the epitome of that ongoing myth. Was Byck/Bicke simply envious, or was he actively deranged?

It is a question the film never quite manages to answer, being instead a complete antithesis to the usual Hollywood feel-good fare, and a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. What the film does provide, however, is a truly masterly display of virtuoso acting and characterisation by Penn. Although he won his Oscar for 2003’s Mystic River after three prior nominations, this display of sheer talent could well help him secure his place as one of Hollywood’s all-time greats. Film acting doesn’t get much better than this.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM