Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

SnoopyStyle It's 1972. Sam Bicke (Sean Penn) is a disturbed man who feels disconnected from the world. He has been kicked out of his home by his wife Marie Andersen Bicke (Naomi Watts). His friend Bonny Simmons (Don Cheadleis) works at a garage. He's bad at his job as a furniture salesman. As his world spirals out of control, he fixates on a plan to hijack a plane, and kill President Richard Nixon.Sure it's a big time performance by Sean Penn as the incompetent delusional loser. But it's just unrelenting how ridiculously pathetic Sam Bicke becomes. It grinds you down as he loses all connection to reality. The pace is a slow meditative walk through his crumbling world. It just doesn't have the energy of Sean Penn's more iconic loser role Travis Bickle in 'Taxi Driver'.

supernova_painkiller One more time, I have watched a movie, a great one that so underrated that it makes me sick.This movie is so good. It reminds of Taxi Driver, but I do prefer this one although the other one was great), because I think here we have a very close look to what can make an honest, decent man go wild. Then you understand what the system do to the people, and although I completely disagree with Sam Bicke's attitude, I can understand why he did it. I we can see the human being behind it, maybe a regular person can become mad if everything turns against him.Sean Penn is acting was no less than awesome! I got surprised and disappointed how could him not be nominated for almost anything! What happens with the guys of the Critic Board, Academy, Golden Globe or similar retarded people. We have here a masterpiece, a great achievement. Penn just gave another brilliant performance, and you didn't give a damn. Shame on you. One of Penn's best!This movie is very great and I truly recommend it!

Desertman84 The Assassination of Richard Nixon is a striking psychological drama that stars Sean Penn, Don Cheadle and Naomi Watts.It is based on the story of would-be assassin Samuel Byck, who plotted to kill Richard Nixon in 1974.It was directed by Niels Mueller. Sam Bicke is a salesman for an office-supply company whose life is slowly beginning to unravel. His job is going nowhere.His wife,Marie has left him.His boss keeps pushing self-help books on him that make a mockery of his state of mind. One of Bicke's few friends is Bonny Simmons, an auto mechanic, and together they come up with an idea for a tire shop on wheels.While neither has the money to finance the project, Bicke has learned of a program for small-business loans instituted by President Richard Nixon, which he's certain will come through for him. But Bicke is denied his loan, which dovetails with his increasing suspicion of the president's Vietnam policies and a sudden interest in the "by any means necessary" political activism of the Black Panther Party. 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.Also,the movie 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.Although it doesn't hit Taxi Driver's level, it's still a discomfiting look at a man determined to leave his mark on the world and only to become a footnote.

sddavis63 I'm not sure what it is about Sean Penn that inspires this in me, but there's a lot of me that really doesn't want to like him. I approach pretty much every movie he's in with a pre-conceived chip on my shoulder, and then the movie starts and Penn proceeds to knock the chip off my shoulder with yet another brilliant performance. "The Assassination of Richard Nixon" was no exception. Based on real events (and from what I've been able to dig up on the events the movie is for the most part a remarkably accurate portrayal), this movie may feature Penn's strongest performance. I thought he was great in "Milk" and "I Am Sam" and "Mystic River" but this performance can't be ranked far behind those, it it can be ranked behind them at all.Here, Penn plays Sam Bicke (the real person on whom the character is based spelled the last name Byck). Bicke is a guy who struggles with life. As the movie opens we find that his marriage has fallen apart and that he has trouble holding down a job (apparently having been fired by his own brother at the family's tire store.) But Bicke is also someone who can't take responsibility for his failures. He blames those around him, but never himself. Developing a dream to open a mobile tire-selling business, he applies for a government loan to get started, but gets turned down. As he spirals farther and farther out of control (and Penn depicted this gradual emotional and mental erosion brilliantly) he becomes convinced that now the US Government is out to get him, and in revenge he concocts a plan to hijack an airplane and force the pilots to fly into the White House to kill President Nixon. It's one assassination attempt that I wasn't familiar with until watching this movie.Bicke is a strange character - and not just because he's unbalanced. For a while (for most of the movie actually) you feel a degree of sympathy for him. His life has gone to hell, and while he blames everyone around him he doesn't actually hurt them, although he rather creepily stalks his ex-wife both at her home and her workplace. But the story manages to pull that sympathy away (probably starting with the scene in which he kills his dog, the only creature in his life who actually seemed to care about him) and by the end he becomes little more than a monster as he storms an airplane and embarks on a shooting rampage. The emotional impact of the movie (and the gut reaction against Bicke as his plan develops) undoubtedly is heightened by the eerie similarity of his plot with that of the 9/11 hijackers, although the movie was apparently conceived well before 9/11, so the connection is just in the gut of the viewer but wasn't in the minds of the movie-makers, at least at first.Penn dominates the movie. The rest of the cast is solid, and there are no disappointments that come up because of the cast. You wonder for a while how this is going to get to where the title implies it's going (also implied by repeated video clips of Nixon speaking which apparently convince Bicke that the President is his enemy) but the buildup is interesting and the movie (at 1:35) isn't really long enough to ever start to drag. Overall, it's a very well done movie about a little known historical event. (7/10)