Death of a President (2006 film)

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Death of a President
Richard Harvey
Production
companies
FilmFour
Borough Films
Distributed byOptimum Releasing
Release dates
  • 10 September 2006 (2006-09-10) (Toronto Film Festival)
  • 9 October 2006 (2006-10-09) (United Kingdom)
Running time
93 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguagesEnglish,
Arabic
Budget$2 million[1]
Box office$869,352[2]

Death of a President is a 2006 British mockumentary political thriller film about the fictional assassination of George W. Bush, the 43rd and at the time, incumbent U.S. President, on 19 October 2007 in Chicago, Illinois. The film is presented as a future history docudrama and uses actors, archival video footage as well as computer-generated special effects to present the hypothetical aftermath the event had on civil liberties, racial profiling, journalistic sensationalism and foreign policy.

Plot

Broadcast in the year 2008, the film is presented in a TV documentary style format, combining

Syrian
origin, becomes the prime suspect.

Vice President Dick Cheney, now president, uses the possible al-Qaeda relationship in connection with the suspected assassin, Zikri, to push his own domestic political security agenda. He calls for the legislation of PATRIOT Act III, trying to increase the investigative powers of the FBI, the police, and other government agencies over American citizens and foreign residents as he contemplates attacking Syria.

As his wife Zahra (Hend Ayoub) listens to the verdict with family attorney Dawn Norton (Patricia Buckley) in a packed courtroom, Zikri is convicted of killing the U.S. President and sentenced to death based upon dubious

forensic evidence. Meanwhile, a new report which surfaces, substantiated by interviews with Marianne Claybon (Chavez Ravine), indicates that the perpetrator is most likely her husband Al Claybon (Tony Dale), a veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, who lived in Rock Island, Illinois, and who also was the father of David Claybon, a U.S. soldier recently killed in the Iraq War
. The assassin, who blames President Bush for the death of his son, killed himself after Bush's assassination. Claybon's suicide note, addressed to a second son, Casey Claybon (Neko Parham), an Iraq War veteran living in Chicago who was previously considered as a suspect, reads:

Everything I stood for and raised you to stand for has turned bad. There's no honor in dying for an immoral cause. For lies. I love my country, but I love God, and the sons He gave me even more. I must do the right thing by you and by David. George Bush killed our David, and I cannot forgive him for that.

Ten months after President Bush's assassination, Zikri remains on death row at the Stateville Correctional Center, because government officials are deliberately delaying his legal appeal. Moreover, in his dead father's Rock Island house, Casey Claybon finds evidence of his father's planning of the shooting. The most incriminating piece of evidence is a copy of a top secret presidential itinerary outlining, to the minute, President Bush's Chicago whereabouts on 19 October 2007. The news report ends while the U.S. Government continues investigating how presidential assassin Al Claybon obtained that top secret document.

The final closing titles of the film inform the viewer that President Cheney's USA PATRIOT Act III was signed into permanent law in the U.S., stating the following: "It has granted investigators unprecedented powers of detention and surveillance, and further expanded the powers of the executive branch".

Cast

  • Hend Ayoub as Zahra Abu Zikri, the wife of convicted assassin Jamal Abu Zikri. She comes to believe her family has been targeted by authorities due to their Middle-Eastern heritage.
  • Brian Boland as Larry Stafford, lead Secret Service agent assigned to the president. He ultimately failed in preventing the president from being assassinated, as he discusses the day's events and security precautions leading up to the tragedy.
  • Becky Ann Baker as Eleanor Drake, personal advisor to the president. She dutifully assisted in preparing his speeches and was one of the first few people to learn of his death at the hospital.
  • Robert Mangiardi as Greg Turner, First Deputy of the Chicago police department, in charge of coordinating security arrangements for the war protest as well as handling the blocking off of city streets for the presidential motorcade. He expresses his displeasure with the violent tone of the protesting public.
  • Jay Patterson as Sam McCarthy, White House correspondent for The Washington Post. From time to time, he expresses his disapproval with the government's basis for holding Zikri. He believes they have no definitive evidence linking him to the assassination other than the fact that he might have flirted with the thought of terrorism by visiting an enemy country.
  • Jay Whittaker as Frank Molini, a war protester caught and arrested by police in the ensuing chaos after the initial shots were fired at the president. In his possession was a banner depicting a gun being fired at Bush. However, he was later found not to be the assassin.
  • FBI, involved with reporting directly to new president Dick Cheney
    on his investigation surrounding evidence related to the assassination.
  • James Urbaniak as Dr. James Pearn, an FBI forensic examiner assigned to the case to collect and catalogue evidence against any possible suspects. He obtains a partial fingerprint of Jamal Abu Zikri from traces of gunshot residue at the crime scene, but notes that it is only associative evidence and not necessarily enough evidence for a conviction in a court of law.
  • Neko Parham as Casey Claybon, son of possible suspected assassin Al Claybon. A war veteran who did not particularly support Bush, but who also claimed to have no knowledge of the assassination. He was initially arrested in the melee following the killing, as he walked through the streets of downtown Chicago looking for employment.
  • Seena Jon as Samir Masri, a
    Yemeni American protesting at the war rally outside where the President was speaking. Members of his family were deported back to Yemen after overstaying their travel visas following the 9/11 attacks
    . Masri was at the rally to protest Bush's policies and was arrested as a suspect.
  • Christian Stolte as John Rucinski, FBI investigator with the joint terrorism task force, assigned with interviewing detainees including Jamal Abu Zikri. Skeptical, he stresses his suspicions about Zikri's whereabouts on the day of the assassination as well as his military history after analysing his statements.
  • Chavez Ravine as Marianne Claybon, wife of suspected possible assassin Al Claybon. She finds it hard to comprehend her patriotic husband could have had any connection with the killing.
  • Patricia Buckley as Dawn Norton, Jamal Abu Zikry's defence attorney. She immediately expresses her challenging task of defending her client who the FBI believes has connections with terrorist organisations. She relates her difficulty by conveying that any person suspected of involvement with Al-Qaeda unfortunately equates to a guilty verdict in American society.
  • Malik Bader as Jamal Abu Zikri, the suspected assassin, a Syrian national working at an IT firm in a building neighbouring the Chicago Sheraton. He was convicted of the crime, but appealed the verdict while being held on death row due to minor forensic evidence implicating him in the assassination.
  • Tony Dale as Al Claybon, the figure cited as a strong likely suspect of the assassination who ended up committing suicide after he supposedly killed the president. He was a Gulf War veteran distraught over a second son's death from the Iraq War, blaming Bush for his misery.

Production

Filming

The funeral scenes in the film include footage taken from archival coverage of

AR-15
. Image editing software was used to add the actors' images to photographs with President Bush.

Although all imagery related to Bush's assassination was created using digital special effects, an apparent actual death, captured on tape, is included in the film during a piece of war footage in which an

Iraqi insurgent prepares to launch a rocket, but is shot in the head first.[4]
Except for specific scenes, most of the actors portrayed in the film were not told of the premise surrounding the story.

During a post emergency surgery news conference, the chief physician's comment that he had "never seen such a strong heart in a man of the president's age", is a reference to President

African American outside the hospital recalls an interview of a witness on the streets of Washington, D.C. in 1981 following that assassination attempt. Filming was done entirely on location in Chicago, Illinois.[citation needed
]

Music

The film score was composed and conducted by Richard Harvey. Sound effects and music elements were mixed by Alex Riordan.

Director's notes

The film's director, Gabriel Range, noted that the film is not "a leftist jeremiad"[5] and further said:

The purpose of the film was not to imagine how the world stage would reset with the assassination of George Bush. The intent of the film is really to use the assassination of President Bush as a

dramatic device—using the future as an allegory to comment on the past. [....] If people go to the cinema expecting to have some great moment of catharsis watching the president being shot, I suspect they're in for a pretty big surprise. I think that anyone who's expecting this to be a liberal wet dream is in for quite a shock ... It was very important that the film was not a political rant. It was not just a condemnation or polemic because I think that polemics are easy to dismiss.[5]

Release

The official premiere was at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival on 10 September 2006.

Television

In Europe, it was broadcast in the UK on 9 October (

Polar
)

Box office

National Public Radio refused to broadcast advertisements for the film.[8] The film was screened in the U.S. for 14 days, showing at 143 theatres at its widest release.[1][2] Worldwide, it grossed $869,352.[2] The Japanese motion picture ethics committee, the Eirin, prevented Death of a President from being shown in most cinemas in 2007, saying that the film's Japanese title ("Bush Ansatsu", translated as "Bush Assassinated") is inappropriate.[9]
The film was scheduled to begin showing in Japanese cinemas on 6 October 2007.

Home media

The Region 2 Code widescreen edition of the film was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on 30 October 2006, followed by the Region 1 Code version in the United States on 3 April 2007. Special features include interviews and commentary with screenwriter Simon Finch, editor Brand Thumim, line producer Donall McCusker and director Gabriel Range. A theatrical trailer is also included with the extras.

Reception

Politicians

The

Texas Republican Party described the subject matter saying, "I find this shocking, I find it disturbing. I don't know if there are many people in America who would want to watch something like that."[10] Hillary Clinton, then junior United States senator from New York, told The Journal News of Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam counties at the annual New Castle Community Day in Chappaqua that, "I think it's despicable. I think it's absolutely outrageous. That anyone would even attempt to profit on such a horrible scenario makes me sick."[11]

Simon Finch, the co-screenwriter, replied saying that Clinton had not seen the film when she commented.[12] The Bush administration did not comment about the film; as White House spokesperson Emily Lawrimore remarked, "We are not commenting because it doesn't dignify a response."[13]

Critical review

Critics had varied opinions about Death of a President. The

Village Voice, J. Hoberman said it was "dramatically inert, but a minor techno-miracle" and that it "skews more theoretical than sensationalist ... Bush is presented as a martyr."[3] James Berardinelli commented that "If this was a serious examination of the possible long-term ramifications of George Bush's current foreign policy, or if it had anything interesting to say about Bush's legacy, it might be justifiable. But that's not the case. The decision to use Bush rather than a fictional representation of him is for no reason other than self-promotion."[17]

Of the critics who liked Death of a President,

Freaks & Geeks as a presidential speechwriter) are unerringly authentic as real people, speaking spontaneously before a documentary lens -- even when it's clear they've rehearsed in their heads what they're going to say, and may even have told these same stories any number of times before."[21]

The film has been reviewed in 2014.

Indiewire critic Andre Seewood wrote that the film does not "suggest that [George W. Bush] actually be assassinated by British agents."[23] Seewood further wrote that it is "not a direct insult to an enemy but hypothetical criticism of [UK's] ally cleverly disguised as a television news journal in countries where freedom of speech is mutually respected."[23]

Awards

The film won a total of 6 awards including; the International Critics Prize (

British Academy TV Awards in 2007.[25]

See also

References

  1. ^
    IMDb
    . Retrieved 16 November 2009.
  2. ^ a b c "Death of a President (2006)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 16 November 2009.
  3. ^ a b Hoberman, J. (17 October 2006). "Assassination Tango". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
  4. ^ Violence section Screen It!
  5. ^ a b Moyer, Justin (December 17, 2014). "Before Sony and The Interview: This award-winning movie imagined George W. Bush's assassination." The Washington Post. Retrieved December 22, 2014.
  6. ^ Spiegelman, Arthur. "Bush assassination film set for U.S. release". Reuters. Archived from the original on October 28, 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-10.
  7. ^ Arendt, Paul (10 October 2006). "US film giants ban Death of a President". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  8. ^ Pilkington, Ed (28 October 2006). "Cinemas shun film of Bush shooting". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 21 December 2014.
  9. Asahi Shimbun. 2007-05-18. Archived from the original
    on September 29, 2007. Retrieved 2007-05-23.
  10. ^ "Row over Bush TV 'assassination'". BBC News. 2006-09-01. Retrieved 2006-10-10.
  11. ^ Worley, Dwight R. (2006-09-16). "Sen. Hillary Clinton blasts Bush assassination film". The Journal News. Archived from the original on 2006-10-23. Retrieved 2009-09-03.
  12. ^ Interview, Canada AM (24 October 2006)
  13. ^ Sullivan, Kevin (2006-09-02). "Bush 'Assassination' Film Makes Waves Across the Pond". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
  14. ^ "Metacritic: "Death of a President"". Archived from the original on 2009-06-07. Retrieved 2006-10-23.
  15. ^ RottenTomatoes: "Death of a President"
  16. ^ Corliss, Richard (11 September 2006). "Who Killed George Bush?". Time. Archived from the original on November 6, 2006. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
  17. ^ Berardinelli, James (2006). "Review: Death of a President". Reel Views. Retrieved 2009-11-16.
  18. ^ Reed, Rex (17 September 2006). "The Toasts of Toronto: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett in Babel, Penélope Cruz, Reese, Ricci". The New York Observer. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
  19. ^ Howell, Peter (11 September 2006). "DOAP terrifies with realism". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
  20. ^ Lovece, Frank. "Death of a President". Film Journal International. Retrieved 2009-11-16.
  21. ^ Emerson, Jim (12 September 2006). "TIFF: Who shot Bush?". rogerebert.suntimes.com. Retrieved 2009-11-16.
  22. The Prince George Citizen
    . Retrieved December 23, 2014.
  23. ^ a b Seewood, Andre (December 23, 2014). "Satire or Propaganda: The Interview or Don't Yell Fire in a Crowded Political Theater."
  24. ^ "Death of a President scores TIFF critics' prize". CBC News. 16 September 2006. Archived from the original on February 5, 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
  25. ^ [1] IMDb Awards Notes

External links

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