Years after the assassination of President George W. Bush in Chicago an investigative documentary examines that as-yet-unsolved crime... Death Of A President is a controversial fictional drama with a unique premise told in the style of a retrospective documentary which offers a critique of the contemporary US political landscape. Winner of The Critics' best film prize at the Toronto Film Festival.
Just to get this out of the way: I do not like George W. Bush. That being said I will attempt to judge this film according to its merits. Death of a President is a unique, and some would say, foolhardy attempt at a "mockumentary". The premise is this: the year is 2008, and the film is a documentary on the assassination of George W. Bush, which occured in late 2007. The film attempts to uncover the "facts" about the assassination and the ensuing search for the culprits and tracking justice's progress. The film has its issues. There are too many characters, I understand that in real documentary features, they try to have many authoritative sources from which to draw, however, when the film attempts to track all of the suspects and people involved, the "plot" tends to get a bit muddled. The film seems to dwell on the fact that many people strongly dislike the president, therefore making it difficult to narrow the suspects. This could be an effective way to look at the search for the assassin, but, it really just makes the film look preachy, telling the audience things it already know for the purpose of making a point, rather than attempting to clarify the plot. While I appreciate the attempt made by teh film to try something different, I think the execution (no pun intended) was a bit of a muddle, and I think a lot of the critical accolades like teh best film at TIFF were more a reaction to the president's politics rather than teh films quality, not unlike Fahrenheit 9/11 with the Palm D'Or at Cannes.
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Award-winning retrospective drama. On October 27th 2007, the President of the United States, George W. Bush, is assassinated by a hidden shooter on his way out of a Chicago hotel, in front of which an anti-war rally is being held. A man of Syrian origins, Zahra Abu Zikri (Hend Ayoub), becomes the number one suspect. Years later, a documentary filmmaker presents a movie about what the United States has become since the assassination.
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