CAST: Hend Ayoub, Brian Boland, Becky Ann Baker, Robert Mangiardi

DIRECTOR: Gabriel Range

Everyone loves to hate President George W Bush, and he surely has many baying for his blood. But what exactly would happen if someone put a bullet through Bush, in the heart of America?

This remarkable “mockumentary”, on events post a Bush assassination, examines such a situation. Without taking sides and managing to steer clear of an anti-war or Bush-bashing agenda, it presents an authentic portrayal of a bruised administration handling one of its worst crises post-9/11, in the backdrop of all that followed that cataclysmic attack.

Perhaps it helps that this is a British-made film. While that doesn’t seem to have done it any good in the US — where several big theatre chains refused to show it — the film actually does a favour to the President by hinting that though he may be wrong, his actions are guided by the strong belief that he is doing what is best for the country.

Shot as an investigative documentary for TV, it has interviewers talking to all the parties to the incident — officials in the Bush administration, the Secret Service, the FBI, the forensics experts, and the suspect’s family.

Apparently the actors weren’t told the plot of the film, only their lines. The working title was D.O.A.P., and few knew it was about the death of “the President”. Whatever the motive, the idea seems to have worked, and it is hard to believe that what we are seeing are actors and not real officials.

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