It may come as a surprise to some that this film, helmed by Niels Mueller, is fact-based.
It was 1974, a few months before Nixon’ ignonimious retreat from office, neck-deep in the sinking sands of Watergate.
Middle-aged wacko Samuel Byck tried to hijack an airliner and ram it into the White House in a prescient 9/11 scenario. Yet, the 44 year-old failed. And not only did he fail, but he wound up dead without even getting the jet to take off.
Byck was a Philadelphia-born wash-out husband and father who worked as an office supplies salesman.
He had had it in for the incumbent Head of State since being refused a loan by the Small Business Administration. He felt betrayed by the Government as an American Dreamer and set his sights on killing the President.
Although Byck had been questioned by the Secret Service prior to his hijacking hi-jacking attempt, no action was taken against him. Maybe because he told the SS he had meant his death threats to Nixon as a prank.
No matter – the questioning is not mentioned in the movie. Neither is Byck’s stint in a psychiatric hospital in the wake of a slew of scuppered business ventures.
This movie depicts Bicke’s (Sean Penn) - the re-spelling was introduced for the purpose of not offending living family members – downward spiral towards hanging-by-a-thread emotionally-crippling madness.
He is downtrodden by his boss – played by Jack Thompson – and snubbed by his estranged waitress wife – embodied by Naomi Watts. He follows her every step in psycho stalker fashion, seemingly unaware that their separation is permanent.
The only person who shows a modicum of genuine concern for Bicke is his black mechanic friend Bonny. He is Bicke’s partner in his fledgling tyre-store bus business.
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Bicke’s (deliberate?) societal alienation is his undoing. And at the root of his indelible alienation lies his feeling of having been betrayed by the Government.
This is a protoypical little-guy, average schmo loser story that culminates in a surrender to folly out of desperation.Desperation, I say, which stems from the American Dream being a lie fed to the poor man by the Government.
Penn is superb as per usual. His thespian elan is more Oscar-worthy here than in his gong-winning performance in “Mystic River”. As for the remaining cast, all of them throw believable enough performances to hold the plot together.
Don Cheadle (Bonny) deserves special mention as an actor whose delivery possesses an at-face-value subtlety belying an underlying fiery intensity.
Bizarrely enough, the hi-jacking incident was swept away in the tide of bigger stories and scandals. Yet it gives undeniable insight into the misconception about extremism that it is endemic among only one race and religious faith.
Mueller takes an effective swipe at corrupted leadership and its jiggery-pokery. The salesman/polititian analogy referred to by Bicke’s boss is strongly indicative of that.
An all-round absorbing piece.
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