Using the enacted death of a still living person as a launching point for an artistic/commercial endeavor is, in my personal opinion, quite distasteful, but I can hardly govern what can and can't be produced in the movie world. Therefore, I watched Death of a President, a fictional documentary -- set about a year-and-a-half in the future -- that covers the aftermath of the assassination of President George W. Bush (whose policies I disagree with, to say the least), hoping it would offer something insightful along the way.

Unfortunately, this movie doesn't take any unexpected routes -- it uses the scenario, which is outwardly contructed as a speculative investigation of an unsolved mystery, to extrapolate several national consequences, but all of them are simply more extreme versions of what's happening now, i.e. the restriction of additional civil liberties, the further persecution and scapegoating of Middle Easterners to justify armed conflict with their countries even more, and the escalating unrest of a public that doesn't understand for what purpose we're sending our troops over to get killed.

In other words, it's the aftermath of 9/11 times two, which anyone following the news could predict, perhaps even without having to imagine the president getting shot. As a result, the movie's proposed shocking scenario comes off as a stunt, becoming the main morbid draw and leaving us little the wiser. I'll have to admit, though, the "footage" of Bush (and even Cheney delivering his eulogy) looks quite convincing -- which left me wondering more about "how'd they do that?" than pondering the possible real-life ramifications of the supposed assassination of our current president. (Capsule review)

(Released by Newmarket Films; not rated by MPAA.)

Review also posted at www.windowtothemovies.com.