'Death of a President' released

[Sisyphus]

No, I haven't seen it. Yes, I know there's already a (completely speculative) topic about it. But I just saw a short review of it that I thought was interesting, by Scott Tobias, that maybe answers some of the questions we had back then.

 

"An unknown gunman assassinates George W. Bush." With those six words' date=' the first line of a program description of Death Of A President for the Toronto Film Festival, a controversy was born that in many ways proved more interesting than the film itself. Sight unseen, the film has been derided as despicable (Hillary Clinton), inappropriate (Regal Cinemas CEO Mike Campbell, who has refused to book it), and even possibly illegal (Rush Limbaugh). The premise alone is a political litmus test: Is it morally acceptable to consider the assassination of a sitting president? Isn't this some sick left-wing fantasy come to life? Of course, actually seeing the movie helps sort out these sticky questions: Many of its fiercest detractors may be surprised to find that it's a far more sobering piece of speculative fiction than they might have imagined.

 

In fact, for the first two-thirds, the film's politics remain decidedly neutral, as it busies itself with the scrupulous details of how the assassination went down. Presented as a BBC-style documentary shot after the fact, D.O.A.P. cuts between fake talking heads and remarkably well-staged footage of the events leading up to the shooting. Visiting Chicago to give an address to supporters in the financial community, Bush is greeted by a particularly virulent group of protesters en route to the speech. As the protesters grow more unruly and a few slip past police barricades, security concerns are heightened around the president's centrally located hotel. And sure enough, when he steps outside to greet supporters, a gunman from one of the surrounding buildings fires the fatal shot.

 

First things first: Bush's death is treated, inarguably, as a national tragedy, so any worries that D.O.A.P. would amount to little more than art-porn for lefties are entirely unfounded. It's even a bit moving when Secret Service members, speechwriters, and aides get choked up when they talk about their feelings on that day. Though his film frets throughout about the erosion of civil liberties, director Gabriel Range doesn't really bring the hammer down until the official investigation begins and the killer's identity becomes politicized. The closing act loses much of the powerful verisimilitude of the events leading up to it, finally giving way to blunt ironies about the legacy of obfuscation that Bush leaves behind. Range comes about these issues in a provocative way, but they're still worth discussing, aren't they?[/quote']

[Pangloss]

Tobias' opion is pretty much the exception. Most of the reviews are coming up negative, regardless of politics. It's apparently just not a very good movie. Two thumbs down at Ebert & Roeper, and 31% on the tomatometer (55 rotten reviews out of 80... wow).

 

Range's movie is notable more for its superficial gimmick -- and the publicity campaign trying to cash in on the 'controversy' surrounding it -- than it is for its ideas, which are few and familiar.

 

When judged against the real-life outlandishness piling up on a near-daily basis, this what-if scenario can't really measure up.

 

Theater bans give "Death of a President" the appeal of forbidden fruit, which is just enough to make watching the slipshod film a giddy experience.

 

It starts strong but quickly turns into a standard murder mystery that has few surprises and fewer thrills.

 

Love him or hate him, George Bush has generated the kind of emotions that a film like this needs to address in more substantive terms.

 

Aside from its fake assassination, Death of a President hasn't much of substance: warmed-over criticism of the Patriot Act and the Iraq war, in a form less trenchant than your nightly dose of Jon Stewart, or even Chris Matthews.

 

Just as the ducks get lined up in a row and we're ready for the movie to reveal its true purpose -- Political satire? Paranoid dystopian fantasy? Apologia for the Bush administration? -- we suddenly realize it has none.

 

There were a few positive notices, though. My personal opinion is that one should watch and decide for themselves (that's what I always do).

 

What I think is interesting here is that apparently the artist subverted talent for political impact. Pretty much a double whammy of bad ideas.

[Skye]

What is interesting to me is that in a world where one form of media (the net) is such a wild place, people make such a big deal of this being in cinemas. It makes me wonder whether there's a sense of the internet being a sort of private domain.

[Pangloss]

That's an interesting point. There's definitely been a merging of media types in recent years, and just look at the popularity of YouTube, which just sold to Google for $1.5 billion.

 

The same sort of thing happened years ago with cable vs broadcast, and we've never really resolved the situation. Are parents really that good at understanding that one channel can show female breasts to their children and another channel cannot? Seems kinda ludicrous when you think about it.

[YT2095]

we`ve seen it here on TV weeks ago, We didn`t see what all the fuss was about in all honesty, it was a bunch of hype over nothing (not all together surprising though).