Death Of A President

This mockumentary about the supposed October 2007 assassination of President George W. Bush is an odd film to say the least. Clearly the makers were familiar with Errol Morris’s 1988 classic documentary The Thin Blue Line as they appropriate that film’s mix of talking heads and dramatic recreations, only lacking a Phillip Glass-like score (music here is by Richard Harvey). But unlike that film, as this is a patent fiction. there is none of the jaw-dropping "how-could-this-happen?" response as a travesty of justice is revealed with the Establishment doggedly setting up a scapegoat for its expedient purposes. Instead one is left asking "what is the point of all this?" 

The other point of comparison is of course Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991) which also made fascinating fiction out of real events. But whilst reality is the bedrock of both those film’s strengths, Stone and Morris both shaped their material into persuasive theses. Here the fictional elements are too dramatically underdeveloped, the dynamics too flat to engage.

Death Of A President is well-made technically, cleverly integrating archival and purpose-made footage into what is an impressive but rather pointless simulation of an assassination and its aftermath..

 

Want something different?