Sean Penn's Sam Bicke is a man so agitated and awkward that he brings uneasiness to whomever
he encounters. He is literally a walking time bomb -- firing his mouth off at work before eventually
turning a gun on some pilots during a botched hijacking. In 1974, in the high-tension pre-malaise
era of Watergate and Civil Rights, small injustices threaten to turn every downtrodden loner into a
raving lunatic.
Bicke inhabits a very insular world -- perhaps too much so. His wife, played coolly by Naomi
Watts, is on the brink of turning their separation into a divorce, yet we see little reason why these
two would've been married in the first place. Likewise his best friend Bonny (a superb Don
Cheadle) seems too together and determined to be hanging around with a loser like Bicke. Yet
through Bicke's myopic lens -- Nixon monologues droning in the background, constant critiques
from every acquaintance, one business disappointment after another -- everything seems to make
sense if only they'd see it his way.
Penn's nervous twitches and bizarre mannerisms combine for a deft portrayal of the ultimate loose
cannon. Several scenes cause squint-inducing cringes, as if Bicke was the drunk relative at the
Christmas party you wish you could just shoo into a back bedroom. He asks to join the Black
Panthers and become "Zebras," for instance, as if that logical progression would end some sort of
racial plight. He goes on to pick a fight with an aggressive customer at his wife's bar, not realizing
how his actions will reverberate in the grand scheme. Time after time the man seems to be
monumentally set back, though his failure to adapt to social conventions and the changing times are
every bit as responsible for his anguish as The Man is.
If "The Assassination of Richard Nixon" isn't perfect, it's nonetheless an immensely watchable
portrait of an angry individual who isn't quite sure where to channel his rage. Bicke simplifies his
problems by concluding that offing the president will set things straight. But in the process he, and
the audience, come to see just how warped the system can be perceived and how dangerous those
at the fringe really can get.
