Film Review: The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004)

Four men entered America’s history books by taking the lives of US Presidents: Booth, Guiteau, Czolgosz, and Oswald. Yet, for every assassin who achieved that aim, countless others attempted the same act of political annihilation, their schemes collapsing before fruition, condemning them to perpetual obscurity. Among these forgotten figures stands the protagonist of Niels Muller’s 2004 period drama, The Assassination of Richard Nixon—a man who sought to etch his name into history through a spectacular act of violence but whose failure ensured his erasure from the public memory he so desperately craved.

The relative obscurity of Samuel Byck (1930–1974) is, upon reflection, somewhat baffling. Though he ultimately failed, his chosen method was chillingly original for its time: hijacking a commercial airliner to crash it into the White House. Decades later, this modus operandi would tragically echo in the methods employed by the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks—the worst terrorist atrocity in American history. Byck’s fleeting notoriety was such that he warranted a brief, spectral reference in Stephen Sondheim’s acclaimed musical Assassins, a work that deliberately resurrects the marginalised figures who stalked the edges of presidential power. Yet beyond this theatrical footnote, Byck remained a historical ghost, a testament to how history remembers only those who succeed in their destructive ambitions.

Muller’s film, however, takes significant liberties with its subject. The script by Muller and Kevin Kennedy alters the protagonist’s name to “Sam Bicke”—likely a gesture of deference to his still-living relatives. Played with intense, often grating commitment by Sean Penn, Bicke’s story begins in late 1973, as Richard Nixon’s presidency crumbles under the weight of Watergate revelations. Initially, these political tremors barely register with Bicke; his world is consumed by personal collapse. His marriage to Marie (Naomi Watts), the mother of his three children, is disintegrating, and he has walked out on his brother Julius’s (Michael Wincott) successful tyre shop, unable to endure the humiliation of perceived failure beside familial prosperity. Bicke is a man drowning in intimate despair long before he fixates on national corruption.

Gradually, Bicke reframes his personal failures as symptoms of a systemic, oppressive machine. His attempt to launch a furniture business with his only friend, the African American Bonnie (Don Cheadle), collapses when the Small Business Administration denies his federal grant—a rejection Bicke interprets as blatant racism. Simultaneously, he takes a demeaning job at an office furniture store under the cynical, self-help-obsessed Jack (Jack Thompson). Jack’s perverse admiration for Nixon—whom he dubs the “ultimate salesman” who deceived voters with promises to end Vietnam—becomes the catalyst for Bicke’s radicalisation. In Nixon’s perceived duplicity, Bicke finds a mirror for his own thwarted aspirations and a target for his rage. His solution crystallises into a grotesque act of political theatre: hijacking a passenger plane to crash it into the White House. On 22nd February 1974, he storms Baltimore-Washington International Airport, but his plan unravels ignominiously on the tarmac, ending in a bloodbath that claims his life.

Premiering at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, The Assassination of Richard Nixon arrived amidst a politically charged global atmosphere. Opposition to the Iraq War was intensifying, and Hollywood openly mobilised against George W. Bush’s re-election. The parallels between Nixon’s embattled presidency and Bush’s were unmistakable, lending the film an air of contemporary relevance. Muller delves heavily into the politics of early 1970s America—touching on the persecution of the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement—while advancing the provocative thesis that the corrupted American Dream drives “small” men to lash out against “The Man.” Yet these weighty themes ultimately serve as mere backdrop to the film’s true, unspoken ambition.

Despite its political veneer, The Assassination of Richard Nixon reveals itself as a calculated exercise in Oscar bait. For a directorial debut, Muller’s approach is disappointingly conventional, relying on the tired trope of the afflicted protagonist. Bicke isn’t merely a desperate man crushed by circumstance or political disillusionment; he must also exhibit a near-total disconnect from reality, veering into undeniably lunatic behaviour. Penn, ever the method actor, seizes this opportunity to “ham it up” to exhausting degrees. His performance—characterised by twitches, mumbled monologues, and self-pitying rants into tape recorders addressed to Leonard Bernstein—destroys any genuine sympathy for Bicke. Instead of exploring the complex interplay of personal failure and political rage, the film reduces its protagonist to a caricature of mental instability, rendering the narrative self-important and smug. Penn’s theatrics overshadow the socio-political critique, turning a potentially nuanced character study into an exercise in awards-season grandstanding.

Most perplexingly, Muller deliberately avoids dramatising Bicke’s final, defining act. The hijacking itself—the moment of culmination, the point where personal despair transforms into historical action—is rendered almost perfunctorily. The ending feels profoundly anti-climactic, particularly for viewers aware that Nixon would resign just months later, rendering Bicke’s sacrifice not merely futile but historically insignificant. This narrative cowardice squanders the story’s inherent tension and moral complexity. Any filmmaker intrigued by Byck’s story would surely prioritise the audacity and horror of his plan; Muller’s reluctance to confront it head-on suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of his own material.

The inevitable comparison to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver only highlights Muller’s shortcomings. Travis Bickle, like Bicke, is a disaffected loner radicalised by urban decay and political cynicism. Yet Scorsese masterfully channels the suffocating malaise of 1970s America, embedding his protagonist’s descent into violence within a richly textured social landscape. Muller lacks this directorial finesse. His vision of 1970s America feels flat and stage-managed, lacking the visceral energy and moral ambiguity that made Scorsese’s film a masterpiece. Where Taxi Driver explores the seductive danger of nihilistic heroism, The Assassination of Richard Nixon merely gestures towards profundity before retreating into awards-friendly pathos.

Launched in 2004—a year dominated by politically charged films like Fahrenheit 9/11—Muller’s film vanished almost immediately. It failed to resonate even with audiences actively seeking political cinema, sinking into a relative obscurity that ironically mirrors the fate of its protagonist.

RATING: 3/10 (+)

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