The Death of a President is not Fahrenheit 911 and Gabriel Range is not Michael Moore. As long as you don't go into the theater with the expectation of seeing vitriol poured on Bush, you might actually be able to appreciate the movie for what it is worth.
The movie combines actual news footage superimposed with the voices and faces of actors at times. President Bush is shot on the premises of a Chicago hotel in 2007. The director builds up to this event by showing anti-war protesters outside the hotel and breaches of the security cordon around the presidential entourage. A significant part of the movie, and indeed the main plot of the movie, is focussed on the aftermath of the assassination, primarily in finding out who the the killer is.
I am no fan of Bush but images of the guy collapsing into the arms of secret service agents does evoke a tinge of concern if not outright sympathy. Unlike a lot of other assassination movies, this one does not spend a lot of time on the actual event and the kind of public grief that might surround the death of a sitting president. Except for a few shots from Bush's funeral and President Cheney delivering the eulogy, there aren't images of wailing masses on the streets or the kind of post-assassination build-up you see in movies about JFK's assassination.
The movie is not explosive largely because it adopts a matter-of-fact approach in the post assassination plot and does not sensationalize the death. But it is hard to escape the subtle yet consistent political message behind the movie which is the chickens have come home to roost from the Iraq war. The movie repeatedly takes pains to emphasize the extremist nature of the assassin but touches, in passing, on hot button issues like racial profiling , civil liberties and racial profiling.
Overall rating: B
