I didn't so much get the point about Death of a President although in terms of the 90-odd minutes it took, it didn't bore me. Although in terms of a genre, it can be categorized as a mockumentary, there's not enough "mocking" to make you stand up and take notice.
Directed by Gabriel Range, Death of a President is a fictional account of President Bush's assassination and the administration's high-handed approach to bringing the culprits to book. There are fictional characters from groups such as the Secret Service, which is supposed to guard the President, the FBI, the suspects and the families of those involved. In terms of the look and styling, the movie scores high enough. The scenes seem very real and some great CG even shows President Bush getting shot and going down amidst a crowd of people. What's a little hard to digest is the content of those fictional interviews.
There's no doubt that the story keeps moving with a good pace but there's something ludicrous in the filmmakers wanting to make you believe something that never happened. And my conclusion of why it doesn't arrest you enough is because of a good final punch towards the end that the film sorely lacked. One can see the effort put in by screenwriters Simon Finch and Gabriel Range to keep the story interesting but it never reaches a peak and nosedives with a soft ending.
Death of a President will satisfy your anti-Bush hunger only to an extent. The movie obviously tried to capitalize on the tirade that went across the globe when Bush launched his war on Iraq and Afghanistan but falls short of really making you hate the administration like the way Michael Moore does. I thought that should've been the point of the movie but somehow that part never clicked leaving it as a half-baked potboiler, at best.
Rating: 6/10
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