Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13167 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-10-09
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 92 minutes

Synopsis
Sean Penn gives yet another remarkable performance as troubled soul Sam Bicke in Niels Mueller's debut feature film, THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON. As the Watergate scandal is breaking and President Nixon can be seen all over the television and newspapers, Bicke struggles to earn money as an office furniture salesman as he tries to win back his estranged wife, Marie (a brunette Naomi Watts). He has grand plans of starting a mobile tire store with his friend Bonny (Don Cheadle), but he is so blinded by truth and honesty that he stands in the way of his own potential success. His rage continues to build as he sees another man spending time with Marie and the kids until he cannot control it any longer and resolves to kill Nixon, whom he blames for all of society's ills. Mueller, who co-wrote the script with Kevin Kennedy, tells the story in a series of flashbacks as Bicke dictates into a tape recorder the sad details of his life to composer Leonard Bernstein, the only person he thinks will understand him. Penn immerses himself in this difficult, challenging role, playing a simple man on the verge of exploding. From the way he covets his moustache to how he reacts when he's around Marie, Penn embodies Bicke, who sees himself as representative of the loss of the American dream. Based on true events, the film also deals with the racism and sexism that was rampant in the early-to-mid-1970s.

Customer Reviews

a decent film
Based on true events more or less,sean penn plays sam bicke who loses faith with everything and at a loss as to whom to blame,points his finger at the president of the time richard nixon and finds his alledged lies to correspond to the lies that have cost him everything as in his job,his family and more.
Sean penn is sublime as bicke,a loser who cant beat his fears and is ultimately his own worst enemy,refusing to accept anything that goes against what he finds means that he finds it hard to survive,a black cloud literally follows his every move and means that this film will struggle to make you smile.
The film has some great performances but isnt world class although its impossible to fault sean penns belting performance.

Watch Penn
This is a small film and ultimately a depressing story that of a loser left without hope and nothing left to lose. A man who finally snaps and launches a futile gesture of defiance against the world which ends in the only possible way - with his death and the legacy of a posthumous feature on a news broadcast. It's also "inspired by" a true story.

Many would argue that there is no reason at all to see this film (particularly those who prefer the usual Hollywood obsession with happy endings), were it not for the riveting Sean Penn. As a portrait of a man breaking up, piece by piece, you will not see a more finely nuanced anywhere - an acutely detailed, minutely observed portrayal of human resistance being eroded as the patently absurd aspirations that a man clings to are exposed: a dream of business success, that his wife would return to their wreckage of a marriage, and ultimately that he could hijack a plane and crash it into the White House. Penn is also well supported by an ensemble cast that includes Naomi Watts, Don Cheadle and Jack Thompson, and given good support by scriptwriter/director Niels Muller.

Not a great movie, but certainly powerful and moving, and a record that Sean Penn is worthy of greater note than just a footnote that he was once married to Madonna.

Sean Penn's greatest performance
Niels Mueller's sole feature film director credit is this character study about tragic loner Sam Bicke (Sean Penn), a furniture salesman disillusioned with the dishonesty of the world he reluctantly inhabits. Loosely based on a true story, Mueller presents a convincing polemic on the back of bold characterisation. Forget subtexts and pregnant silences - Mueller's film is all about the power of expression.

What it's not about is the assassination of Richard Nixon. I feel the title is not a sensible one - like Sam's slug-like boss (Jack Thompson), it's selling a different product. Do not expect a Jack Ryan-esque heroic espionage thriller. This is, after all, the grimy Land of the Free of 1974, fed on a diet of Dickie Nixon promises and apocalyptic TV visions from Vietnam. Think Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation or Scorsese's Taxi Driver for its mood. But while those films may have lacked emotional warmth, The Assassination of Richard Nixon takes our anti-hero's plight almost into the realm of sentimentality. His scenes with his wife, Marie (Naomi Watts, with whom he memorably shared the screen in the previous year's 21 Grams), are an astonishing portrayal of the agonisingly pitiful.

What seems at once like an exhilarating anti-capitalist diatribe turns into something far more moving: the fable of a lonely man. ("You miss me, don't you?" and "You love me, don't you?" he asks his ex-wife's dog - two things he cannot ask his ex-wife.) But also, fascinatingly, in the final reel Bicke is revealed to be not only deeply alone but deeply unhinged. When his brother (Michael Wincott - an excellent cameo) confronts him about a theft, Sam is forced to confront himself. Sam breaks down, becoming incomprehensible, ranting about racism, displacing responsibility for his crime onto the formless enemy of the honest man. Finally, he says sorry. This scene complicates Sam; it makes him human, not simply an alien observer of the troubled human condition.

Disturbing, moving, cynical, slyly witty, and - horribly predictably - devastating.