Based on a true story of an almost tragic date February 1974, Sean Penn portrays Samuel Bicke, a disillusioned “everyman” driven by rage to kill our President. The story is told in flashback with Penn narrating to (of all people) the great composer, Leonard Bernstein, in a series of suicide letters, because his music was both pure and honest, which he felt in turn, would represent the truth about Bicke to the world. Bicke is a furniture salesman by day and a lonely estranged husband by night. Neither his wife, (Naomi Watts) nor his best friend (Don Cheadle) can save him. Dale Carnegie can’t save him either. His boss has taught him that Richard Nixon was the greatest salesman, because he sold the American people not once, but twice and still didn’t end the war in Vietnam during his second term. The story paints a sympathetic portrait of Bicke’s vulnerable character yet we are never fooled. We know his inflicted isolation from family and friends, is purely due to fault of his own. Bicke manages to parallel Nixon’s behavior to his own experiences and rejections, making him the large looming villain in a world of too many smaller dragons to slay. Penn’s character seems to have shrunk (appropriately so) yet still manages to emerge as large as his Oscar winning character in “Mystic River”.
