It is 2007. The war in Iraq still rages and tensions with North Korea have escalated. Following a speech for the Economics Club of Chicago, George W. Bush is assassinated in front of the Sheraton hotel. ""Death of a President,"" written and directed by British filmmaker Gabriel Range, is a fake documentary detailing the assassination of the president through manipulated archival footage, fictional interviews and CGI effects.
While the first half of the film is stimulating even to the point of chilling, the events following the actual assassination take the focus off the provocative what-if. Instead of imagining America's response in the wake of such an event, the film changes its energy toward the hunting down of the killer, leaving the audience with only racial guilt trip.
Because the film is only 90 minutes long, it never quite loses its suspense, but one might feel it loses its importance.
The film opens with Bush's arrival in Chicago, where he speaks at a luncheon about the economy and impending war with North Korea. Bush is swarmed by a mob of angry protestors. The fictional witnesses inform us that though the president had endured many protests before, this one was especially angry and out of control.
Each incident of the crowd pushing through barriers or resisting security clues us in that this is a crowd irate enough to house a possible assassin. There is a slow impending sense of doom in each of these instances, since we know it will end in assassination. It is an effective, if not exaggerated, shout to those opposing the war that exercising rights has a limit, although the image of protesters burning an American flag may be a bit of stretch.
The strength of this film, similar to that of the recent ""Man of the Year,"" lies in the reality of an extreme event caused by extreme opposition from the left. The blending of real and fake footage is mostly successful and even CGI-inserted characters are not obvious enough to distract from the film. Because this takes place less than a year in the future, the scenario is realistic enough to be plausible, yet far away enough to keep a subjective view.
After the assassination, mock interviews, which include a forensics team and the Secret Service, relay the events that led up to finding the culprit. Eventually this involves the obvious zoning in on Arabic-sounding last names and finger pointing without all the evidence. At this point, the movie has stopped doing anything provocative and original— instead it just rehashes America's problems with scape-goating and stereotyping.
Though ""Death of a President"" succeeds in presenting an exciting political scenario in which all sides are heard, it ultimately fails to leave the audience with anything substantial. When Dick Cheney steps up as president, further amends the Patriot Act and sends innocent men to jail, it does nothing but give this present-day American audience an unneeded shame-on-you.
