Posted on: September 6, 2007 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Death of A President / 2006 Newmarket / 93 Minutes / http://www.newmarketfilms.com / Reviewed 22 October 2006

If someone has not at least heard of this movie, their head has been in a hole for the last few months. Simply put, what director Gabriel Range does with this film is envision a world in which United States President George W. Bush is assassinated. One can view this movie in many different ways, largely based on their political orientation. Is this something that could conceivably happen is a question that individuals should pose. United States Presidents have been assassinated in the past, including Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy. Would Dick Chaney, the current Vice President, ascend to the Presidency upon the death of Bush? Yes, that’s a structural fact. Would a polarizing even such as the death of a President allow for an individual like Chaney to push through what one can only believe is eir own policy desires? It happened with the first iteration of the PATRIOT Act, and one can only imagine that the outrage would be greater if the events in the film actually happened.

While I will not give away the ending of the film (the death of the President is an event that happens early, not late, in the film), everything that is described by Range in this film could well happen if the current course of the United States and its foreign policy stays constant. I do not believe that Senator Clinton is correct in eir distaste for the film; I would say that any distaste should toward the individuals that made money off of movies discussing 9/11. The simple fact is that Range wants to get this move out there, regardless of whether ey makes tons of money on it or not. Let us not forget that the film was shown in its entrirety on Channel 4 (an UK television station) on October 19th. What would be nice to see is if there was a distribution system for “Death of a President” similar to that with Loose Change 911 and United 93; one should just pay for the media and shipping out of the film, and copying should be encouraged.

The film’s use of a faux documentary to frame the events in the film is something that has not been seen since 1983’s “The Day After”, and I am sure that in due time that this film will gain the luster that “The Day After” did all those years ago. Regal Group (the largest owners of cinemas in the United States) will not show this film, so I implore you, the reader, to go out and find any possible method of seeing “Death of a President”. After seeing it, the consequences of such a heavy-handed policy in Iraq (and soon, Iran) should become much more grave to anyone that paid attention. The film does not glorify any party in this film, and really should not be taken as a smear campaign against any American political party; let us remember that members of both parties were in favor of the original Iraq action, so neither Republican nor Democrat has completely clean hands.

Rating: 8.3/10

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