'It's about the money, Dick!'

Sean Penn plots to kill the president in the discomforting The Assassination of Richard Nixon

BY MATT KELEMEN

Sam Byck was a failure in life, and an even bigger failure in death. Byck was a real-life, mentally unbalanced tire salesman whose attempt to fly an airplane into Richard Nixon's White House became a forgotten footnote in the annals of presidential history.

It took nearly 30 years for Byck's story to make it to the screen, and the timing couldn't be more appropriate.

Director Niels Mueller stumbled across Byck's story after creating a character who bared an uncanny resemblance to the would-be assassin. But Mueller couldn't have predicted the parallels to Sept. 11 or the contextual relevance to today's political climate. On the basis of those facts, and with a powerful if discomforting performance by Sean Penn, The Assassination of Richard Nixon succeeds.

It's a downward-spiral film, though, and watching someone falling apart isn't entertaining, unless the viewer has a mildly sadistic streak. An actor of exceptional intensity is required for the lead, and the filmmaker has to artistically compensate for the lack of a happy ending. Death of a Salesman and Taxi Driver are hallmarks for the genre, but reactions to Assassination will probably fall more in line with reactions to Michael Douglas' gun-toting everyman in Falling Down, Christian Bale's wastoid psychotic in The Machinist or Philip Seymour Hoffman in Owning Mahowny.

Penn's challenge was to create a distinct character, especially with the shadow of Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle looming over him. Penn largely succeeds, although he doesn't achieve De Niro's pathos. He's more like Hoffman's pathetic, degenerate gambler, unable to help himself as he slides into ruin. Penn's Sam Bicke is a liberal idealist who sees oppression at every turn. He has just taken a job with an office-supply store run by a gregarious bullshitter (Jack Thompson), and resents the lying (or salesmanship) he's encouraged to resort to.

He hopes the job will lead to reconciliation with his ex-wife (Naomi Watts), who has custody of their children. Bicke resents the short skirts she has to wear at work, shows up unannounced at awkward times and refuses to see that she's already moved on. He resents the racism and ridicule he see his African-American friend Bonny (Don Cheadle) subjected to (although Bonny doesn't really see it himself). And Bicke begins to see one person symbolizing the greed and dishonesty in society: President Richard Nixon.

But Bicke has a plan. He wants to get a loan from the Small Business Administration and go into business with Bonny. He envisions a mobile tire store operating out of a converted school bus as the answer to all of his problems, including his desire to be redeemed in the eyes of his brother Julius (Michael Wincott). An austere Orthodox Jew and successful tire salesman, Julius has nearly given up on Bicke. When Bicke is turned down for the SBA loan, his desperate attempt to get his own business going further alienates Julius and sends Bicke hurtling toward a near total breakdown.

It all goes down easier thanks to stellar supporting-role performances. Thompson (Breaker Morant, Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones) is the film's highlight as Jack Jones, the smooth-talking personification of the power of positive thinking. Thompson pushes Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie on Bicke, believing that any man can be successful if he wills it so.

"I smell success," he says to newly hired Bicke. "You've got the odor."

Wincott (The Doors, The Count of Monte Cristo), although regulated to one scene, is intense as Julius. His withering condemnation of Bicke is the film's most powerful scene, and a memorable moment between two of today's finest actors.

But responsibility for success falls directly on Penn's shoulder. Samuel Bicke is the polar opposite of Mystic River's Jimmy Markum. Bicke is halted in his speech and barely able to make eye contact. He's slow-witted and tactless, which humorously plays to the film's advantage when he pays a visit to the local Black Panther headquarters in order to make a $107 donation. We have empathy with Bicke at first -- but we lose it as he brings about his own downfall, babbling "It's about the money, Dick!" to a televised Nixon as he slides into madness.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon isn't a comfortable ride into tragedy, but its subtext may strike a chord with absolutist ideologues who blind themselves to personal responsibility and complain as they allow society's salesmen to run the show.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon opens at the Village Jan. 21.