The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004)

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It's 1972. Sam Bicke (Sean Penn) is a disturbed man who feels disconnected from the world. He has been kicked out of his home by his wife Marie Andersen Bicke (Naomi Watts). His friend Bonny Simmons (Don Cheadleis) works at a garage. He's bad at his job as a furniture salesman. As his world spirals out of control, he fixates on a plan to hijack a plane, and kill President Richard Nixon.Sure it's a big time performance by Sean Penn as the incompetent delusional loser. But it's just unrelenting how ridiculously pathetic Sam Bicke becomes. It grinds you down as he loses all connection to reality. The pace is a slow meditative walk through his crumbling world. It just doesn't have the energy of Sean Penn's more iconic loser role Travis Bickle in 'Taxi Driver'.

This quiet, powerful movie is loosely based on the real events. Samuel Bicke, meek and obedient person with the intense hidden anger, is slowly unraveling. His marriage is dissolving, he hates his job and his obnoxious boss, the bank loan for starting a new business is rejected. Typical story of a man without his place in this world. God knows, there are hundreds of millions of people like him on this unfortunate planet. But, something made this man stand apart and try to kill the president Nixon. The attempt itself would be called inane if innocent people weren't killed.The tragic ending to a sad life story. This intense movie uses a perfect language to tell this story, so pertinent to the times we live in.More and more lost souls, and the future looks far away from rosy. Millions of question and none of the answers.

I made this account specifically to tell you how bad this movie is.If you wanted to watch a really drawn out predictable movie on how someones unmotivated life leads them to be a killer, which doesn't really fit into the reason he became crazy and hatched the worst plan ever of crashing into the white house. This is a low budget movie with low budget result. Do not waste your time watching this movie do not waste your time watching this movieIf this is a true story its not worth writing a movie about it, a small fish in a big sea. Its just not a good movie. Its just not. go watch good will hunting.

Niels Mueller's sole feature film director credit is this character study about tragic loner Sam Bicke (Sean Penn), a furniture salesman disillusioned with the dishonesty of the world he reluctantly inhabits. Loosely based on a true story, Mueller presents a convincing polemic on the back of bold characterisation. Forget subtexts and pregnant silences - Mueller's film is all about the power of expression.What it's not about is the assassination of Richard Nixon. I feel the title is not a sensible one - like Sam's slug-like boss (Jack Thompson), it's selling a different product. Do not expect a Jack Ryan-esquire heroic espionage thriller. This is, after all, the grimy Land of the Free of 1974, fed on a diet of Dickie Nixon promises and apocalyptic TV visions from Vietnam. Think Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation or Scorsese's Taxi Driver for its mood. But while those films may have lacked emotional warmth, The Assassination of Richard Nixon takes our anti-hero's plight almost into the realm of sentimentality. His scenes with his wife, Marie (Naomi Watts, with whom he memorably shared the screen in the previous year's 21 Grams), are an astonishing portrayal of the agonisingly pitiful.What seems at once like an exhilarating anti-capitalist diatribe turns into something far more moving: the fable of a lonely man. ("You miss me, don't you?" and "You love me, don't you?" he asks his ex-wife's dog - two things he cannot ask his ex-wife.) But also, fascinatingly, in the final reel Bicke is revealed to be not only deeply alone but deeply unhinged. When his brother (Michael Wincott - an excellent cameo) confronts him about a theft, Sam is forced to confront himself. Sam breaks down, becoming incomprehensible, ranting about racism, displacing responsibility for his crime onto the formless enemy of the honest man. Finally, he says sorry. This scene complicates Sam; it makes him human, not simply an alien observer of the troubled human condition.Disturbing, moving, cynical, slyly witty, and - horribly predictably - devastating.