This movie sucks

I respect your opinions but I think your both very very wrong!

Don't call one of the better movies out there *beep* just because you had to piss you *beep*

Yeah, you have to actually have be an intelligent being to understand and appreciate it. Go back to the woods you trogledyte

sean penn made us post this, he's crazy you know!

This movie DOES REALLY SUCK. You want some reasons. Boring as hell. Had a hard time staying awake. Sean Penn's Character sucked. You could care less about him either way. You could see he was a loser. I didn't care if he lived or died. The supporting actors were hardly in it and not developed enough. And most importantly, I WAS NOT ENTERTAINED.
Good enough

Thanks, information was what I was looking for.

Way off on your analysis Chrismreynolds. You don't know the world of salesmanship at all if you don't recognize how perfectly it was depicted in this film. Nice try on dismissing "Hollywood" for not knowing the world. Anyone watching this film will know how accurate the world is depicted. From what I've read on this board and from some of the most prominent critics in this country I'd have to say you're in the extreme minority...Then again, I guess you can think you're right and everyone else is wrong. Go watch Star Wars, might be more up your alley.

PS: Yikes! Right after I wrote to you chrism, I did a search and there was yet ANOTHER review that contradicted your assessment...Yikes, sorry!!!! Better luck next time though!!!!!

From May 29, 2005

Like a fine wine, Sean Penn gets better with age. Since his chilling portrayal of a death-row inmate in “Dead Man Walking” in 1995, to his Oscar-winning role in “Mystic River” in 2003, Sean Penn has been honing and perfecting his craft to an art form. He is able to embody character roles with such conviction we forget we’re watching an actor and not the real person.

His newest portrayal of a down-and-out salesman named Samuel Bicke in a little-known independent film called “The Assassination of Richard Nixon,” may well be his best performance yet, though few people may have seen it. His heartbreaking portrayal of this tragic man is so raw and unfiltered, you almost have to wonder if he wasn’t channeling the man himself.

Because this film is based on true accounts of this man’s life, we already know the ending. What we may not know is what led him to commit the desperate act of hijacking a plane in 1972 as part of a plan to assassinate then President Richard Nixon. That journey is where this film comes in. Like a modern version of “Death of a Salesman,” this film shows a tragic man in a downward spiral from which he cannot seem to recover.

Bicke works as a frustrated, meek and bitter furniture salesman, separated from his wife (Naomi Watts) and kids, but desperate to reunite with them. He thinks that if he can start his own tire business with friend Bonny Simmons (Don Cheadle), he will be able to turn his life around and win his wife back. But, somehow, at least according to him, life is against him. He loses his sales job, the loan for his tire business falls through and his wife files for divorce. Destitute, depressed and alone, he blames the president for his lot in life. If his world is falling apart, then the leader of his world must be at fault. Therefore, the only logical thing to do, in his unstable mind, is to hijack a plane and kill Nixon. Once he makes this decision, he has new purpose in his life. He practices with toy guns and airplanes in his tiny apartment. Not sleeping, barely eating, this becomes his obsession, and eventually his demise.

This film, at its heart, is not about hijackings or an attempted assassination, it’s simply a character study of a man, like Willie Loman, for whom the American Dream became a nightmare. Brilliantly played by Penn, his performance is what makes this film worth seeing. He’s come a long way since the days of “Shanghai Surprise.”

Ummmmm...........3 children!!! Out of curiosity, which kids do you remember?

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By the time his boss was asking him to repeat what he said, Sam was already in the midst of a major breakdown. You need to learn more about humans and how they act when they are "losing" it, big time. "Stuttering like a retard" is the least of their problems.

Oh yeah, learn some compassion along the way; you certainly could use it. You're basing your opinions of him AFTER he began his descent into madness.

To Chrismreynolds:

Yours is the first smart and informative review I've read in this forum. You must be the teacher and all the rest of these fools are the 3rd graders or the video gamers of the world - and by the world I mean America, since that's what all Americans believe their country to be (as John Cleese says: Americans are unaware that there is a world beyond their borders). As for this film? Well, I did not enjoy it at all. I found it to be deeply depressing, stark, sparse and reeking with hopelessness and despair. And who wants to pay to go and watch something like that? Not me! I saw it for free on DVD and even that hurt. It was like being in the emergency room at a city hospital and watching them bring in all the poor souls with no homes, or no health insurance, or no future because they are gangbangers handcuffed to a gurney and hovered over by armed cops even though they have a bullet wound and quite obviously aren't be going anywhere. You mention that Penn's character would never marry a woman and I say that, what's more, the woman played by Naomi Watts would never marry this guy. What on earth would possess her to do so? He quite obviously must have been the same person when she met him as he was by the time she wanted out, so what changed her? She had to have been a very different woman when they met because she certainly didn't come across as someone selfless or dopey enough to fall for him at any stage in her life. Unless you are right and he did became brain damaged somewhere along the way. This guy must have been married in real life but I contend that the woman he married could never have been so decisive or headstrong. She had to have been at least as much of a zero as he was. The bottom line is that films like this, if they are to be made at all, should be done on what Hollywood calls a shoestring budget (say two million - and please give me that shoestring!) and kept to the realm of late night television. We go to the movies to be entertained, not hammered in the head with a depressing slice of hellish life like The Assassination of Richard Nixon.

It's funny, reading the posts where people are blasting Sean Penn's performance as terrible, and who could believe him, etc etc. His performance is so TRUE TO LIFE, so real, this is how REAL PEOPLE ACT. Not like perfect humans with all the right things to say as in most movies. Penn did a great job "keeping it real" and not letting this movie go all Hollywood or campy. Especially the way he portrayed Sam's hyper focus on the 'Watergate' investigation and how it becomes more of a focus in his life as he becomes more unbalanced mentally. The camera work and cinematography was a big part as well.

This movie was absolutely brilliant. European audiences get it and this is why it did so well at the Cannes Film Festival. Subtlety is not somethings (most) Americans grasp.

Do you really need to like every character in every film? The whole point of Penn's character was that he was a little bit strange and not very normal, his own brother did not even like him.

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That is what Hollywood does to people!
There is no need for you to feel symapthy for the main character. You do not have to like that person at all. If you feel you have to, why don't you go and watch Mr & Mrs Smith? Everyone seems to love Angelina and/or Brad..

The film is well-made, and the acting is great, but if you've seen Falling Down, The Fan, King of Comedy, One Hour Photo and Taxi Driver, then you won't be surprised by anything that occurs in Assassination of Richard Nixon. Let's see, you've got the deranged sociopath who is obsessed with a political figure while stalking a beautiful blonde (Taxi Driver). You've got the divorced, out of work malcontent man who wants to get public attention (Falling Down, The Fan). We also have the uncomfortable child visitation scenes with the divorced, psychotic dad (Falling Down, The Fan). There's the guy who won't take a hint from a receptionist to vacate the lobby (King of Comedy).

yeah.

Nope, I saw this movie, and IT REALLY SUCKS !!!