The film makes the critics nervous primarily because it points to processes that the US media prefers to ignore or conceal ... America seethes with unresolved political and social contradictions.

| Feb 14, 2021

This beautifully made film was seamlessly woven with a warp of drama and a woof of newsreel. The drama to come made the newsreel of [George W.] Bush utterly gripping.

| Feb 27, 2020

Easily the year's most useless picture

| Aug 28, 2009

Despite the audacious title and premise, Range doesn't aim to shock, but to unnerve

| Original Score: B | Jul 2, 2009

Beyond the feigned controversy stirred up by neocon zealots, "Death of a President" is nothing more than a high concept political hypothesis film that signals the futility of presidential assassination.

| Original Score: C- | Apr 24, 2009

It is at least slick with technique -- or with a synthesis of techniques.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 7, 2008

Without directly confronting the behaviors and attitudes associated with its theory, the movie leaves us with uncertainty, vacillation, and worst of all, emptiness.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 21, 2007

The talking head interviews and other elements make for an intelligent analysis of our reactions and prejudices about such a situation. A must see.

| Original Score: A- | Jun 21, 2007

...even the extras are unconvincing...

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 4, 2007

OK, so, it's got balls and technical skills, but is it anything more than a stunt? Yes, yes it is.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 29, 2007

There is little of the fall of the Twin Towers trauma, but much of All the President's Men here. That this film's buzz has launched such vitriol and condemnation is not surprising. Range's film exposes wider audiences to some basic truths of our times.

| Mar 27, 2007

Bush weepie takes all sides and none.

| Mar 21, 2007

It's hard to imagine anyone without a political agenda who can walk away from this serious, sober and impeccably respectful film and get agitated about it on its merits.

| Mar 1, 2007

As a piece of filmmaking, Death of a President is edgy and fresh, superbly realised and satisfying in its ambition to pass as a powerful documentary about an event that shook the world.

| Feb 24, 2007

It's not art, it's not a serious discussion, it's not a film based in irony or metaphor -- Death of a President is merely a marketing ploy that's big on shock value and short on ideas.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Dec 30, 2006

So long as you think it's okay to depict a realistic-looking assassination of a sitting president via doctored news footage, then you're likely to enjoy this intriguing whodunit in which George Bush is blown away by one of his fed-up detractors.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 29, 2006

"Death of a President" is generally a sobering film that not only dares to think the unthinkable, but encourages its audience, no matter what their political leans, to stop and think as well.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 25, 2006

The movie does highlight the ways that news and commercial images shape public perception.

Full Review | Nov 25, 2006

Despite being heavy-handed and pretentious, and never providing a satisfying conclusion, Gabriel Range's fake-umentary "Death of a President" is nevertheless brilliant in its conception and execution.

| Nov 6, 2006

Accomplished and visually persuasive, but the movie's central conceit remains something of a stunt...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 6, 2006