.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

You wouldn't able to find another actor that has been as consistently at the top of his game as Sean Penn has exhibited in the past five years. Sweet and Lowdown, Mystic River and 21 Grams are just three of the extraordinary films that he has made better with his award winning performances. Whether playing a mentally challenged father or a jazz guitarist, every film with Penn's name on the marquee almost guaranteed a superior product.

I guess that is why us film lovers got excited when seeing his name attached to The Assassination of Richard Nixon. Inspired by real events, Penn plays Samuel Bicke, a down on his luck businessman who is an outcast of all outcasts. He is a dreamer who can't fulfill his dreams, a father who fails at being a husband and a salesman that can't even sell simple office furniture.

He wanders through life in search of personal meaning and with ideas of making contributions to his society. But each initiative is met with a form of rejection. His wife has filed for divorce, his request for a business loan is denied and a controlling and oppressive manager undermines his career as a salesman.

But Sam seems to take everything quietly, even as we in the audience want to howl at the moon for him, and we slowly watch as Sam is stripped of everything he ever owned or appreciated, all in the pursuit of a better life for himself and his family.

If the saying "Watch the quiet ones" is true, there is no better example than Samuel Bicke. And true to any psychological behavioral analysis, it is no surprise that all this vent up frustration would eventually spew like a raging volcano in a level of violence. The result was the attempted hijacking of a commercial airline that Bicke intended on flying into the White House as retribution for his burdens.

His actions would leave a bloody trail that never leaves the tarmac and Bicke a trivia answer for what could have been the darkest day in 1970's American history.

As Bicke, Penn does a good job of giving us a character who is soft spoken but emotionally motivated. He talks without making eye contact and looks almost uncomfortable in his own skin.

Penn's character is in every scene and this low-keyed persona who walks through life like a controlled zombie makes for a boring sit when stretched over a full-length movie. We sleepwalk along with Bicke as he has dinner with friends, has a confrontation with his brother and (in the films only humorous moment) speaks to the leader of the local Black Panthers to try and sell the idea of bring whites into the movement to double the resistance's size. All are important for establishing character, but Bicke doesn't really have one even after all these carefully choreographed scenes are played out.

This becomes unfortunate because we never get to really relate to the character and therefore never really care as to his end result. When Bicke tries to reconcile with his waitress wife (his 21 Grams co-star, Naomi Watts), we don't really feel like he deserves her and he becomes like a gnat on the screen that we want to swat to the next chapter.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon isn't all bad. First time director Niels Mueller does a good job of bringing the 1970's back to life in look and feel and the entire cast including Don Cheadle as friend and car mechanic Bonnie Simmons does a great job with the limited characters they are asked to portray.

But when the film is collected of all it's parts, it falls short of a recommendation. It's like a 70's LP that keeps on skipping and then quickly jumps to the end of the song. Irritating and then non-fulfilling.