The Assassination of Richard Nixon film review

certificate_15

THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON

On February 22nd 1974, a man named Steve Byck forced his way onto a Delta flight at Washington airport, armed with a gun and explosives. His aim was to hijack the plane and crash it into the White House, but events came to a swift and tragic end. Byck shot both pilots dead and committed suicide as police stormed the plane, which remained in its wheel blocks. The would-be assassin has been all but forgotten in the annals of American history, and his story is now re-examined in Niels Mueller's new film.

Sean Penn first signed on to play the lead character in the pre-911 days of 1999, and little could he have imagined how prescient his choice would become. Scenes in which he runs through his apartment carrying a toy plane which he then crashes into a scale model of the Presidential residence are startling to say the least in the light of recent years and have given the film a duly edgy reputation. But Mueller's film is set firmly in the 1970s, and Byck's actions are clearly the work of an increasingly insane individual rather than any political group.

Byck's loss of reality is slowly depicted. At the beginning of the film he lands a new job as a furniture salesman and appears confident he can win back his estranged wife (Naomi Watts) and their children. But Byck is a poor salesman, and his bosses struggle to contain his erratic techniques. His wife deflects any talk of a reunion and pushes for a divorce, leading Byck to spy on her as she dates a new man. He struggles to obtain financing for a spurious new business plan for a mobile tire shop with his partner Bonny (Don Cheadle), and resorts to stealing from his brother. During all of this, he is shadowed by Richard Nixon's image on television during the Watergate scandal, and Nixon becomes the embodiment of why everything is going wrong in Byck's life. From initial frustration at the President, his plan takes a darker turn.

Mueller mixes some fiction into the facts that are known about Byck's life, and creates a convincing portrait of a troubled American loner of the 70s, very similar to Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle. Penn's portrait is a throwback to the films he was making in the mid 90s, when he turned away fro mainstream film-making and concentrated on playing quirky characters in films such as She's So Lovely and HurlyBurly. While it's obviously heartfelt stuff, it does come across at times as a rather forced performance, replete as it is with a moustache and facial tics.