Directed by: Gabriel Range

Written by: Simon Finch, Gabriel Range

Starring: Hend Ayoub, Brian Boland, Becky Ann Baker

Distributed by Newmarket Films

Film was released on September 10th, 2006

Review by Matt Holmes

Death of a President came out of the 2006 Toronto Film Festival with huge press jolting the documentary about a possible future assassination of President Bush into the mainstream. The movie which most critics were lapping up (the movie received many standing ovations) was heavily criticised by the U.S. government and has now subsequently been banned in around 10,000 theatres in the states.

However that didn’t stop the movie from being shown in the UK, and on television last night it was screened for the whole nation. Sad thing is for all the controversy the film has been getting, it will soon be forgotten because the movie itself is not very good.

Death of a President is quite simply… a mess. The movie which was advertised as showing what would happen to the world if the President of the United States was murdered, instead shows an extremely tedious and obviously fictional (despite how it is depicted) “who dunnit” mystery around who shot him and not focusing on the wider global implications.

It’s all about America. Who shot and killed our man? That’s all that is focused on here. Bush might as well represent a pop star or an actor, the lack of political intrigue is shocking for the subject matter that director Gabriel Range was shooting for.

The talking heads of the close Bush personnel are all wrapped up in telling us how good a man Bush was, or what it was like meeting and working with him rather than the state of world is in now he has gone. Although to the film’s credit, the actors were pretty convincing in showing their “emotion” at the death of the President but the way it was portrayed in this film it was so exploitational. Even more so than United 93.

Death of a President is a tedious, slow moving bore fest which is quite frankly not to far estranged from any other mock-u-mentary type program you would stumble on whilst channel hopping. It is so bland, you find it difficult to read as a serious piece of political satire because you are so bored with it’s formulaic style.

This movie is a real missed opportunity. Noboby is going to remember Death of a President in a year’s time.