"Death of a President" (2006) - Movie Review

When you wonder and also widely appreciate the freedom the country of USA provides, the sense of using exploitative material for promoting something brings about mixed feeling. “Death of a President” for me started as an exploitative film with insensitive premise and finished as an enthralling “who done it” fictional political thriller, even more to say having a stronger message reflecting the current scenario we are led to be in. It is delicate and viciously compounds our judgment we had over the film and the characters as such.

Director Gabriel Range along with his writer Simon Finch makes a mockumentary which goes about the events on the day of October 19th 2007 and the further events. The date did not happen when the film was released and it is the fictional date of the fictional assassination of the current President of the United States George W. Bush. As the secret service agent, former FBI personnel, president’s spokesman tell their day and the aftermath of that day we in a curious way start to see what the creators are trying to do out here. The reason it gave the exploitative nature is the brutal truthful enactment of this fictional events which in any means was not grotesque (thankfully) but is the feel of the reality that it threatens your imagination of that possibility. As the investigation is handled out the real possibilities of racial profiling, the hastiness and the pressure to close out activates us to think in diverse context.

It is disturbing to grasp a concept of a living person been shown killed. And it can be quite cruel for the family of Bush to go through this. And it really makes me to rethink my view towards this film. As it seems unreasonable to portray the ends of the message with a means something not much substantiated. But as a political and public figure along with attention, fame and power comes constant threats and hatred; is it the whole package to deal with? It seems almost heartless to answer it yes, but a creative independent process if be categorized for this is another thing to discuss and in fact jeopardizes the very nature of he freedom I was talking about. I was thinking how does it would have been for them to make a fictional president and do the same thing. The instrumental factor of this film is the shocking reality and it would have been lost completely by taking an asylum in fear of facing the creative reality. Apart from this political incorrectness, if we brush aside it and taking the other concerning messages which very much happens in the current world, it is a wonderfully made film blending reality and imagination to such a mastered timing execution.

There is a considerable part of the movie which creates uneasy restlessness. It happens sometime when the film completely shifts to a military family and starts to go through their history. We feel isolated and somewhat cheated but methodically do they bring the suspense and the terror we really face that Range almost chuckles at us for exposing the true identity of the film. The premise much made in a Hollywood styled film would have equally fetched the admiration and film making. But Range going for this form of medium to give in the same which almost escapes guiltless is both an appreciation towards his passion for path breaking approach but also the reality check very much needed in a tensed society as we are in currently.

To present such a film wherein the performance needs to be ruthlessly acting out being natural, the cast pulls it off almost to near perfection. I say almost because the blunder in one particular performance done by Eleanor Drake as President’s spokesperson/assistant I believe. She somehow misses in lot many opportunities that she is in a documentary styled picture rather than an official Hollywood backed film. This sometimes even becomes frustrating to see the off beat note in the whole movie. The rest of the cast does the job for their director impressively.

“Death of a President” will be and has been argued for citing it as insensitive and cheaply exploitative as to the level of torture porn movies. While I normally go very brutal against movies of that nature, Range somehow pulled it off without any major destruction of morality. I would suggest the people to look at the many highly active things which happens and how it has been showed honestly in this film. The premise is such an ignition to bring the seriousness and the gravity of the situation, the film is taking on. We are in a strange world of media manipulation, wrong judgments by good people and quite right judgment about that by very wrong people. “Death of a President” takes a look on our judgment towards it. To jolt us into that, it confronts with an attention flyer quite impossible to go unnoticed.