Death of a President

On his way out of a protester-besieged Chicago hotel in 2007, Bush gets blown away. Patriot Act puffery ensues, the rounding up of usual suspects, etc. “Don’t rush to judge” is the tagline, and the movie mires in an earnest if empty exercise on that theme. The fact that it had to invent injustice in order to expose it doesn’t exactly reflect well. But it is at least slick with technique—or with a synthesis of techniques: Using naught but archival footage, committed actors, image manipulation, and a potent if unoriginal point of view, writer-director Gabriel Range and co-writer Simon Finch posit the mockumentary as political leaflet. Kevin Willmott’s C.S.A.: Confederate States of America tried that too, with weaker performances but real consideration and a sense of humor. Death, for its part, serves up standard see-I-told-you-so commentary with the brief titillation of a hard-left revenge fantasy. If that’s your thing, have at it. Or see it simply because it won’t be shown by Regal Cinemas, the world’s largest movie-theater chain, mostly owned by repugnant billionaire Bush fanboy Philip Anschutz.