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SET in the future (actually only a month away) Death of a President is a fictionalised version of what could probably take place because of the US war on terrorism and the widening gulf with the Islamic world. It is no doubt inspired by the September 11 terrorist attack six years ago but giving it a documentary flavour doesn’t work well apart from being somewhat dishonest. It falls between two stools. The date is October 19, 2007, and United States President George W. Bush is attending an Economic Club meeting in Chicago. Top security measures have been taken and interviews of the persons concerned are conducted. There’s the FBI chief Robert Maguire (Michael Reilly Burke) and the Chicago police superintendent Greg Turner (M. Neko Parham), among others, who give ringside accounts of how the massive, unruly protests are being handled and Bush’s speechwriter Eleanor Drake (Becky Ann Baker) waxes eloquent about Bush’s charisma. Live footage is no doubt used. There’s a thin line that demarcates a demonstration from a threat, the script says, and then it happens. The President is shot, shades of JFK, but he is not dead. He dies the next day but the investigations that follow are given a close look and director Gabriel Range has a good deal of material to wade through. It is dialogue-heavy but what’s worse it is rather weak. Realism there is and the anti-Islamic bias comes strongly. But there are flaws. Firstly, the establishing shots are weak. That they expose the manner in which the arrests are made is good. But the action is somewhat disjointed. Samir Masri. (Robert Mangiardi) and Zahra Abu Zakri (Hend Ayoub) are taken in because of their Islamic names. Zakri is Syrian and to make matters worse his wife’s dialogue (six times) in Arabic is not sub-titled. It is a sort of mish-mash and the only thing that comes across strongly is the general condemnation of the US Partiot Bill and some startling revelations. "There is no honour in dying for an unjust cause and lies," says an ex-military man who commits suicide but apart from stray anecdotes like this Death of a President is far too long-winded and the switching of genres is another major hiccup. The acting is amateurish and the action quite wishy-washy.
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