Death of a President (2006) on Netflix
A fictional documentary looks back at the assassination of President George W. Bush in Chicago and asks who committed the crime. Jamal Abu Zikri becomes the prime suspect.
- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb6.3/107,086 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes39%
Trailer
Plot summary
The film presents itself as a documentary broadcast in 2008, built from interviews, news clips and surveillance video, about the shooting of President George W. Bush in Chicago on October 19, 2007. Bush has just spoken at an economic forum in the Chicago Sheraton Hotel, after an anti-war rally outside, when a sniper fires. Reporters flood the airwaves with the incident and its political fallout, and police sweep up war protesters in the chaos. Suspicion fixes on Jamal Abu Zikri, who works in information technology in a building next door to the hotel and is of Syrian origin. Dick Cheney, now president, points to a possible al-Qaeda link and pushes for PATRIOT Act III, which would widen the powers of the FBI and police over Americans and foreign residents, while he weighs an attack on Syria.
Cast
- Hend Ayoubas Zahra Abi Zikri
- Patricia Buckleyas Dawn Newton
- Seena Ghaznavias Samir Masri
- Robert Mangiardias Greg Turner
- Chavez Ravineas Marianne Claybon
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Death of a President (2006)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
The funeral in the film is Ronald Reagan's: the makers used archive coverage of it, and Dick Cheney's eulogy for the assassinated Bush is in fact a news clip of Cheney eulogising Reagan.- The shooting was faked with computer effects laid over existing footage of George W. Bush, actors were pasted into photographs with him using image editing software, and the assassin's rifle was an airsoft replica of an AR-15.
- Apart from specific scenes, most of the actors who appear in the film were never told what the story around them was about.
- Every image of the assassination was digitally faked, but one apparently real death is in the film: a piece of war footage in which an Iraqi insurgent is shot in the head as he prepares to launch a rocket.
- Two of the largest American cinema chains, Regal Entertainment Group and Cinemark, refused to screen it, a Cinemark spokesman calling the assassination of a sitting president problematic subject matter, and CNN and National Public Radio refused to run advertisements. It played 14 days in the United States, in 143 theaters at its widest.
- Japan's film ethics committee, Eirin, kept the film out of most Japanese cinemas in 2007 because its Japanese title, Bush Ansatsu, meaning Bush Assassinated, was deemed inappropriate. It had been due to open there on 6 October 2007.
- Senator Hillary Clinton called the film despicable and outrageous and said it made her sick, though co-screenwriter Simon Finch pointed out she had not seen it. The White House refused to comment at all, saying the film did not dignify a response.
