The Assassination Of Richard Nixon is loosely based on the true if surreal story of a mentally ill Baltimore salesman named Samuel Byck.
Because he did not actually accomplish what the title of the film suggests he wanted to do, Byck is not much remembered today. Small, tragic failures are rarely lionized in the history books. His surname is even changed in the film to Bicke, for no obvious reason.
In 1974, the real Byck hatched an outlandish scheme to hijack an airplane, fly it into the White House and incinerate then- U.S. president Nixon, who represented the evils of bureaucracy Byck felt were plaguing him. He told his story, on tape, to composer Leonard Bernstein, whom he idolized.
Filmmaker Niels Mueller takes the core set of facts, rearranges some to suit the narrative structure, and turns The Assassination into a character study. We see the fictionalized Bicke fail at work (selling office furniture, not tires as he did in life, for a bully boss played by Jack Thompson), fail in a new business dream (in partnership with Don Cheadle), fail in family (Michael Wincott is his estranged brother), fail in marriage (Naomi Watts is divorcing him) and even fail in his relationship with his dog (the animal is indifferent).
That study is often riveting, in large part due to the exceptional collaboration between Mueller and his star, Sean Penn, who enabled the project by sticking with it through a rough period during which financing remained elusive.
No wonder Hollywood was wary. There are no heroic, cathartic moments. No thrill-ride action scenes. No sexy interludes. It does not follow a formula. Instead, the saga is as raw and sad and depressing and ridiculous and marginal as Byck/Bicke's life. And here is the film's raison d'etre.
It has been said, by the august New York Times, that The Assassination Of Richard Nixon lacks significance because it is "a collection of symptoms without a diagnosis." It is a valid criticism and yet somehow misses the point in this case.
That is because Penn, working with a script co-authored by director Mueller with screenwriter Kevin Kennedy, delves so deeply into his pitiful character's psychology that the performance is like a DNA analysis of an Everyman.
Yes, Byck/Bicke is an Everyman who goes nuts when his career and his personal life go awry. Obviously, not every man does that. Yet, like Travis Bickle in the disturbing Martin Scorsese classic Taxi Driver, Byck/Bicke is not that far removed from other men crippled by failure.
This is one of those "there but for the grace of God" stories, without heavy moralizing. And Penn's work is so selfless, so clean and free of anything familiar in his other work, that you sit there astonished, absorbed, held to the last frame. There is "significance" in a film that can accomplish that.
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