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| Oscar winner Sean Penn (The Interpreter; 21 Grams; Mystic River) and Oscar nominees Don Cheadle (Ocean's Twelve; Hotel Rwanda; Crash) and Naomi Watts (The Ring Two; I Heart Huckabees; 21 Grams) star in the top ten box office hit, THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON, based on the true story of Samuel J. Bicke who, over 25 years prior to the tragic events of 9/11, plotted to kill the President of the United States by crashing a commercial airliner into the White House.
Samuel J. Bicke (Sean Penn) is separated from his wife (Naomi Watts) and kids and is stuck in a dead-end sales job. The only thing that gets him through the daily grind is the hope that one day he will win back his family and start a business of his own with his friend Bonny (Don Cheadle). But when his dreams and ambitions are shattered time and again, Sam's life begins to unravel and he looks for a scapegoat to blame for his own failings and misfortune. In a society still reeling from the effects of political corruption and the fallout of the Vietnam War, one figure looms large – Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the United States of America. In Nixon, Sam believes he has found the person responsible for his and America's problems. Determined to make a change, he embarks on a chilling date with destiny…
A compelling story that exposes the dark side of the American Dream, THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON features a superb central performance by Sean Penn that confirms his status as one of the finest actors of his generation.
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 |  | "They can rebuild the White House, but they will never forget me."
A powerful drama based on a startling real life story, The Assassination of Richard Nixon stars Sean Penn as a disturbed office furniture salesman and divorcee who, in 1974, resolved to kill the President of the United States. Co-writer Niels Mueller makes an assured directorial debut, delivering a thoughtful and visually arresting portrait of all-American loser Sam Bicke, who identified Nixon as the route of all evil and resolved to hijack a plane to crash into the White House. A failure both at home and at work, his attempted terrorism didn't pan out either, and today he's little more than a curious historical footnote, eclipsed – even in his own day - by the Watergate scandal.
Says Mueller of the timely tale, "I can't imagine that most people who see a film based on the true story of a man who tried to dive bomb a plane into the White House won't be thinking about how it speaks to their own lives, and how it addresses the current events that affect us all."
Of the project's genesis, Mueller explains, "I'd been interested for a while in what some historians refer to as ‘the decade of shock to the American system'. Authors I've read talk about this decade, which starts in 1963 with the first Kennedy assassination, and ends in 1974 with Nixon's resignation, as being the one in which America lost its innocence. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but the question interested me."
Settling on Bicke's story as the perfect plot to set against his chosen historical backdrop, Mueller assembled a powerhouse cast to do it justice, from Don Cheadle, Jack Thompson and the sublime Naomi Watts to incomparable leading man Sean Penn. "The world that Sean and Naomi and Don and Jack created felt real and alive," enthuses Mueller, "even with all the cameras and lights and crew people around."
"There are two primary reasons why people feel drawn into the film to the degree that they feel they are almost inside Sam's head," says Mueller. "First and foremost is Sean's performance. He inhabits his roles and he certainly inhabited Sam Bicke. With Sean I got so much more than what I imagined. You end up losing lines of dialogue that you thought were so important because Sean can communicate so much through his eyes or an involuntary pinching of his forehead.
"There were two scenes specifically where everything film-wise just disappeared around me and I just felt like I was sitting unnoticed and watching. One was the scene between Sean Penn and Michael Wincott, who played his brother. You sense this history between the two brothers that's not in the dialogue. It's just what they bring as actors. The other scene was when Sean Penn and Naomi Watts sat on their marriage bed for the last time. I was almost embarrassed because I felt like I wasn't supposed to be there."
As for the second factor, Mueller reveals, "...the cinematographer and I made a choice to film everything from Sam's point of view as much as possible. We wanted the audience to always be with Sam. If you look at the film with this in mind, you will see that there is almost always a piece of Sam in every shot. We're over his shoulder when he is having a conversation, so we feel him in the frame. Even though we don't see ourselves, or more specifically, our own shoulder, when we talk to someone, I find that in film, when I am over someone's shoulder, I feel more ‘with' them, connected to them. Furthermore, we reserved all of the ‘big head', unadulterated close-ups for Sam. In other words, when you are looking closely into someone's eyes in this film, they are Sam's."
Cleverly made and memorably played, The Assassination of Richard Nixon is as gripping as it is relevant. If ever a movie deserved pride of place on your list, this is it.
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