The Assassination of Richard Nixon
By: Mark Runyon | Category: DVD Archive | 05/03/05 | 09:00 AM
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Grade: B |
Genre: Independent Drama
Summary: This film is a fascinating psychological portrait of one man who felt powerless and disenfranchised with the America he once knew. In his fragile mind, he sees his revolutionary action as his only means of regaining the handle on a life spiraling out of control.
I'm sure we've all been there at one point. The government, the system, the man [fill in your appropriate authority figure] tightens its grip around your world to the point where you feel like you can't breathe. You are forced to lash out at something in order to fight back and regain control of your life. This world we inhabit is filled with constraints where certain people control resources, money and, though we usually don't like to admit it, other people. It's a world order that we have all bought into since the first moment we understood what it meant to be free and not. What if there came a day when it wasn't acceptable anymore? What if you decided there needed to be a new world order that started and ended with you? How exactly does your life get to that point, and what is it like living with the service light of your mind on the blink? This film shows us that life through the troubled eyes of Samuel Byck. |
The film opens as Sam prepares his assassination plot. We see this man on the cusp of something dangerously radical, yet we don't know what brought him to this agitated place. A flash later, we see the same man one-year prior. Sam Byck looks to be the most ordinary person in the world, mainly playing the role of a doormat to those around him. He's so passive that you can't imagine him getting a ticket for jaywalking, much less having the internal fortitude to assassinate a president. He slinks around not wanting to speak out against his conscious-free boss. He loiters about his seperated wives' (Watts) house trying to impress her with his new job while dropping memories of the past although she's long since moved on. He avoids his brother; dropping off money he owes him, only when he spies that he has left work. In a word, he's completely gutless. He's the adult version of the kid that comes to high school dressed in a black trench coat that everyone makes fun of. That boiling rage and frustration has to go somewhere. The question is where?
Inside, we see Sam slowly eating himself alive when he confides in his friend (Cheadle). He detests his new job, which requires him to lie to his customers in order to make the sale. He dangles by a precarious thread of hope in the form of a mobile tire business that he wants to start with his friend so he never has to lie again. It's interesting seeing him study the required readings of Dale Carnegie and the Power of Positive Thinking as his thought processes seem to flee in the exact opposite direction. We watch as he begins to pin his collective frustration and rage onto President Nixon, the biggest salesmen of them all duping the American public on exit intentions in Vietnam when his actions seemed to contradict every word out of his mouth. The parallels between the presidency of Nixon and Bush keep brushing up against you as this film progresses. Both were involved in a war unpopular with the American people. Both faced a growing economic divide that pinched the societies have-nots. The politically charged Sean Penn no doubt choose this role to make his own statement and as a means of venting frustration at the current administration's daft policies.
We see the inner cognitive dissonance mauling him. He has to keep his sales job to pull in the cash to try to win back the affections of his wife, but every sale causes his overly principled inner self to bark at him at the top of its lungs. Sam seems to have stopped socially progressing somewhere in his teenage years. He always says awkward things and has no internal barometer for appropriate social behavior in a given situation. It's interesting to watch because you really don't know what he's going to do next. He continually becomes more and more mentally fragile until his life suddenly snaps into focus and his destiny is clear. A man without hope is a scary thing to witness.
If I were going to assemble an all-star team of actors, Penn, Watts and Cheadle would definitely make my starting line-up. Although this film is heavy on talent, make no mistake that this is Sean Penn's film. Cheadle and Watts are wasted in rather vacant parts that anyone could have stood in for. Penn captures Byck's nature so well. I don't know that I've seen an actor so effectively blend into the wallpaper one second then explode in a rage inspired rant the next. He nails this character and allows us to watch the sad, lonely life, offering up pieces of understanding and compassion to offset our revulsion and horror at Byck's actions. Penn finely captures his inner complexities. Penn is like a fine wine whose acting career is peaking at this moment. Coupled with Mystic River and 21 Grams, I have zero hesitation saying Penn is the best actor working in film right now.
Byck is both an interesting and tragic figure because in the end he wants what we all want. We want to work in a job where we don't have to lie. We want the people around us to have respect for us and see us as important. We want a piece of the American dream we are implicitly promised as a citizen of this fair nation. His intentions for his life are good and honorable though his mind works against him convincing him that he is nothing and that he never will be. His perception of the world pushes him to a point where he sees himself as little more than a slave. He is plagued by his perceived failure in life that haunts him in his string of jobs and his marriage. Given his mental instability, it's no wonder that he found himself trapped in a corner and this was his only way out.
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