THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON
Directed by Niels Mueller
In theatres
(***)
Subscribe to Hollywood North Magazine
Written By: John H. Foote
Sam Bick (Sean Penn) reminds me a great deal of Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) in Taxi Driver (1976). There is that same sense of a lost soul struggling to find their place in the world with the hidden knowledge they have lost touch with everything around them that represents the reality of life. There is something dangerous about them because they radiate a sense of danger; awareness that the only way they will find a place in society is to lash out at what they believe is wrong.

Set in 1974 at the height of the Watergate hearings, The Assassination of Richard Nixon is a moody and atmospheric character study that one will find hard to shake after seeing the film. How many Sam Bick’s are there really out there? Do we know any? And more frightening how man of them will see the film and say to themselves, I know that man, I am that man.

A remarkable directorial debut from Mueller, the film is a commentary on the times, a time in history when many Americans had lost faith in their country, their President and ultimately, themselves. First premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this past year, the film attracted attention for the performance of Penn. There is Oscar talk surrounding his work, as there always is, but I fear that not enough people have seen the film. It opened in Los Angeles and New York before Christmas to qualify for Academy consideration; the problem will be ensuring enough members of the fickle Academy see the film.

In an extraordinary performance, Sean Penn creates a man separated from his wife whom he still loves and his beloved children who consider him something of a joke. He watches as another man comes into her life and her bed and he sense that he is losing them. He is estranged from his brother, has lost a job with his brother and now works for an office supply store owned by a father and son who love bullying their new associate.

As outrage upon outrage piles upon Sam, he becomes a time bomb. He writes a series of letters to the great composer Elmer Bernstein asking the maestro the answers t his many questions. He then targets President Richard Nixon at the centre of his rage and decides he will hijack a plane and fly it into the White House killing the man he believes to be behind the sense of dishonour in the United States.

Based on a true story, the film is a devastating portrait of a man who has lost everything that means anything to him and cannot get it back no matter how hard he tries. This is not a bad man, an evil man, just a confused little man caught up in circumstances he can neither control nor understand. A self described “grain of sand”. Sam takes on the tragic elements of iconic losers such as Travis Bickle or Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman of Death of a Salesman. His act against the US President is an act of failure like everything else in his life, but in death he will no doubt achieve some fame and be for a fleeting moment in history, a somebody.

Penn is brilliant capturing the frustration of a man who hears the Watergate hearings on his radio and television everyday amidst the failure of his personal life. Everywhere he goes he sees failure, even in the scheme he cooks up with his buddy to start a business, which is turned down by the bank. How can he go on? We feel for him, despite the madness we know is taking control of his soul, Penn is such a fine actor he makes us feel sympathy for this crazed man.

Though Penn is in virtually every frame of the film there are fine supporting performances from Naomi Watts as his wife, tired of him, tired of the burden he has become and the manner in which he makes her sad. She does not hate him, she does not dislike him, she is simply tired of him and tired of him being in her life. They have a scene together in her bedroom where she tells him as gently and as honestly as she can about what she wants in her life and he is not within that dream. There is genuine pain in her voice as she tells him, but we already know that despite hearing the words, knowing she no longer wants him, the fact he is there is seen as hopeful by him. Only when he can no longer get to her and the children does he realize they are forever out of his life.

Don Cheadle does fine work yet again as Bick’s only true friend, a mechanic who shares in Bick’s dream of owning their own business together. Though he knows there is something amiss with his friend, he gives him the benefit of the doubt, trying to find something decent in him, knowing it is there but also knowing it is fast dying.

Mueller does an excellent job recreating the period, but this is not a director’s film, this film belongs to the genius of Sean Penn. From Taps (1981) through to his Academy Award winning performance last year in Mystic River (2003) he has proven time and time again he may be the most naturally talented working in modern film. This performance, like the many others before it, screams that loud and clear for all to see. He is revelation in a devastating portrait of a man coming apart at the seams. Mueller created a time bomb, Penn allows us to see it ticking just short of the explosion.









© Copyright 2004 Hollywood North Magazine Inc.