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The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004)

tomatometer

68

Average Rating: 6.7/10
Reviews Counted: 130
Fresh: 88 | Rotten: 42

No consensus yet.

52

Average Rating: 6.3/10
Critic Reviews: 31
Fresh: 16 | Rotten: 15

No consensus yet.

audience

67

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 12,656

My Rating

Movie Info

The true story of a man who, on February 22, 1974, was thwarted from an ambitious plan for political assassination provides the basis for this striking psychological drama. Sam Bicke (Sean Penn) is a salesman for an office-supply company whose life is slowly beginning to unravel. Bicke's job is going nowhere, his wife, Marie (Naomi Watts), has left him, and his boss (Jack Thompson) keeps pushing self-help books on him that make a mockery of his state of mind. One of Bicke's few friends is Bonny

R, 1 hr. 35 min.

Mystery & Suspense, Drama

Niels Mueller, Kevin Kennedy

Apr 26, 2005

$0.6M

ThinkFilm

Cast

All Critics (142) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (93) | Rotten (44) | DVD (25)

Sean Penn brings this obscure failure back to life in a vivid portrayal of a madman in the making, a madman who had a date with a gun and history.

February 11, 2005 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel | Comment
Orlando Sentinel
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's not just Nixon's shadow that hangs like a cloud over Assassination, it's the shadow of the bummerific era of American movies his regime spawned.

February 4, 2005 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comment
Toronto Star
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The idea that assassins are products of their times is intriguing, but The Assassination of Richard Nixon is betrayed by its ambitions and pretensions.

February 4, 2005 Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | Comment
Globe and Mail
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A well-made if relatively uninvolved character study with nothing noteworthy to say.

January 21, 2005 Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press | Comment
Detroit Free Press
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Features a bravura performance by Penn as a frustrated and deluded loser, but there isn't much else to recommend. The story is a one-note drag.

January 21, 2005 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | Comment
Houston Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Assassination is an odd little movie. It's exceptionally well-done but doesn't attain the levels of meaning for which it seems to be striving.

January 21, 2005 Comment
Denver Rocky Mountain News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Debut writer/director Neils Mueller (co-writer on "Tadpole") stitches together an ambiguous meditation on the pervasive affects of government corruption during the Nixon Administration that led a Baltimore man to attempt to kill the President by hijacking

April 18, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | Comment
ColeSmithey.com

The film manages something quite remarkable, both a compassion for Bicke's wounded sense of life's betrayals, and stark revulsion for the personal logic of his bloody remedy.

May 28, 2007 Full Review | Comment
Long Island Press

The film manages something quite remarkable, both a compassion for Bicke's wounded sense of life's betrayals, and stark revulsion for the personal logic of his bloody remedy.

February 8, 2007 Full Review Source: WBAI Web Radio | Comment
WBAI Web Radio

(...) Niels Mueller (...) conduce el relato con seguridad y tensión creciente hacia el inevitable estallido de violencia final.

December 28, 2005 Full Review Source: Uruguay Total | Comment
Uruguay Total

There are good things about the movie, but it finally trips itself up on its two-fisted seriousness.

September 1, 2005 Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) | Comment
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Penn -- with his angsty, swallowed depression -- elevates the movie into a gripping portrait of uniquely American estrangement and alienation...

May 12, 2005 Full Review Source: Now Playing Magazine | Comment
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Assassination of Richard Nixon

Sean Penn puts in one of his best performances to date in this highly underrated thriller based on true life events.

September 16, 2009
SirPant

Super Reviewer

"I am but a grain of sand. The meek shall not inherit the earth. The earth belongs to the bullies who do not care how they get to the top."A film inspired by a true story about the life of an ordinary man who plotted to kill Nixon.Another one of those sad stories of a person channeling his lifes frustration

May 19, 2008
Gx7
Ginny  X

Super Reviewer

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