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Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: A well-made if relatively uninvolved character study with nothing noteworthy to say. Read more
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: By the time Bicke crosses the line from passive sad sack to murderer, The Assassination of Richard Nixon has made an eloquent case for explaining the seemingly unexplainable. But the movie doesn't make you care. Read more
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Maybe Mueller, who wrote Tadpole and has been nursing this project for five years, wasn't quite ready to direct it. Read more
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The movie is at times startling in its impact. Read more
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: A faithful portrait of a period in American social history and a character study of a man struggling to make sense of his life, using conflicting American myths as his guide. Read more
Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: The highest possible thumbs up for Penn and a big thumbs up as well for first-time director Niels Mueller. Read more
Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: This ranks as another excellent performance from Penn. Read more
Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Penn's performance seems to give Mueller's filmmaking an exquisite purpose. Read more
Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: Dark and eerily resonant, Niels Mueller's The Assassination of Richard Nixon crawls under your skin and amps up the agitation until you want to jump out of it. Read more
Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: Features a bravura performance by Penn as a frustrated and deluded loser, but there isn't much else to recommend. The story is a one-note drag. Read more
Michael Booth, Denver Post: The always remarkable Penn infuses Sam Bicke with more originality than the plot allowed. Mueller took a real-life incident now lost in the history books and re-created a sympathetic back story for Bicke. Read more
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Penn's performance is really a profound study of a particular type of loner that no one has pegged better: the sociopathic putz. Read more
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The idea that assassins are products of their times is intriguing, but The Assassination of Richard Nixon is betrayed by its ambitions and pretensions. Read more
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Sam would be a cliche in the hands of many actors. But Mr. Penn, not surprisingly, turns him into a vivid and very specific character, familiar not just from the movies but any number of down-and-out corners of real life. Read more
David Chute, L.A. Weekly: This man without qualities is a concept rather than a man, an ambitious rich actor's condescending fantasy of a colorless suburban schmo. Read more
Jan Stuart, Newsday: The Assassination of Richard Nixon is a triumph for its star and the writers, who make us cringe with empathy for a man who taps into the latent loser in all of us. Read more
Logan Hill, New York Magazine/Vulture: Read more
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: There's little here to make his movie truly dramatic, or even different from those that have gone before. Read more
Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: A slight movie and a major downer. Read more
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: I find that I much prefer Mr. Penn as the not-so-nice cynic in Anthony Drazan's Hurlyburly (1998) or Clint Eastwood's Mystic River (2003) to his sincere, idealistic fool here. Read more
Manohla Dargis, New York Times: Because there's no discernible point to this film about one man's plan to 'incinerate Dick Nixon,' it has only craft and technique to recommend it. Read more
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Sean Penn brings this obscure failure back to life in a vivid portrayal of a madman in the making, a madman who had a date with a gun and history. Read more
James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Penn and the historical context will generate some interest, but the film's ultimate reception is likely to be as chilly as the month in which it receives its theatrical release (December 2004). Read more
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This is a character study of a marginal man who goes off the rails, and Penn is brilliant at evoking how daily life itself is filled, for Bicke, with countless challenges to his rigid sense of right and wrong. Read more
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: In a bravura performance, Sean Penn makes this whiny schlemiel a character of such piercing pathos that Sam will rattle around in your brain for weeks. Read more
Christy Lemire, Journal News (Westchester, NY): Read more
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: It's not just Nixon's shadow that hangs like a cloud over Assassination, it's the shadow of the bummerific era of American movies his regime spawned. Read more
Mike Clark, USA Today: Even if audiences can get by the tasteless shock title, it's tough to figure who will ever watch this movie -- even when it's on cable. Read more
Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: Moody, pretentious, but potent. Read more
Desson Thomson, Washington Post: The problem is, Assassination just makes you think of other, better films that have tackled similar subjects. Read more
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: The movie really misses something by ignoring poor Officer Ramsburg, and also the other cop who intervened. I could see how that movie would work: It could cross-cut dynamically between the mentally ill man and the two officers. Read more