'Death of a President' is a fictionalised documentary about the build up to and fallout of the assassination of President George W. Bush. The film has already garnered a lot of publicity due to its controversial subject matter and was always sure to divide critics and audiences alike. 

The Film

Despite using a clever combination of archive news footage, dramatised scenes and recreations, the film falls short of its lofty premise. So an interesting idea for a film suffers from being over-hyped and plays out in a rather obvious and contrived manner.

The writer/director Gabriel Range has a history of experimenting with this specific kind of fake documentary (I’m refusing to use the term mockumentary). He is responsible for the films ‘The Day Britain Stopped' and 'The Menendez Murders', both of which used a similar mix of footage and techniques to lend an air of realism to the drama they're presenting.

The film is quite clearly broken into two pieces; the build up to the Presidents death and the aftermath of that event, followed by the subsequent investigations into those responsible for the incident. Range skillfully mixes real and fake footage together in the early stages of the film. With straight to camera interviews from the secret service agent assigned to Bush and the chief of the Chicago police, we learn about the preparations for the president’s trip and the political climate that surrounds him .The great score from Richard Harvey helps build an air of tension and genuine danger surrounding the president on his visit to Chicago.

The film takes real life situations and events which have characterised the current US administration; the spin and press manipulation tactics they use to shape the will of the country towards a predefined conclusion, and subsequently uses them to shape a 'What if..' situation. The US foreign policy, the scape-goating of Iraq and the post 9/11 climate of fear are all referenced and transposed from the past into the future.

What starts out as a brave attempt at something different falls apart in the second half of the film, by letting down the tension that was built up so aptly in the beginning stages. Turning into a trite mixture of Oliver Stones 'JFK' and 'In the line of fire', the film holds the documentary style but loses pace as they trudge through interviews with lawyers, forensics experts, family members of the suspected assassins and FBI investigators. The explanations of how the powers at be manipulate and control situations to their own benefit become very heavy handed.

Picture

The dvd picture is of the usual Optimum high quality, a difficult mixture of DV footage, camera phone, archive film and HD camera footage all have visible grain but the filmmakers have tried to balance the transition between the footage styles to find a good median that Optimum have done justice to.

Sound

The solid 5.1 soundtrack is as good as it could be expected for a film of this style and budget 

Extras

The disc has an interesting commentary track with the Director, Producer, Line Producer and Editor, Adding more depth to a film that only just held my attention. 

An Interview with the same team from the commentary track reiterates a lot of the same information from the audio discussions but delves further into the inspiration for the film and the motivations behind the filmmakers. 

Specs 

Cert: 12
Running Time: 93 mins
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 anamorphic Pal
English Language
Region 2
Dolby Digital 5.1
RRP: £15.99