Nat Geo's film adaptation of "Killing Reagan" isn't worth your time

[Ubiquitous]

Ernest Hemingway once said, “An intelligent man is sometimes forced
to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”

This is especially true when watching foolish movies.

Introduction to characters in any sort of medium is vital to
establishing how we are to see them. Comedic genius Gene Wilder
understood this: When Willy Wonka came on screen for the first time
and did athletic flips while with a cane, Wilder wanted to tell the
audience that Wonka could not be trusted through the entire film.
Character portrayal is essential to a character-driven movie. On the
other hand, shows that are action-driven or are comedy-driven focus
on special effects and delivery of the comedy.

For shows that focus on the presidents — it’s essential that we
feel, laugh, cry, and grow with them

Not in the film adaptation of Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing Reagan.”
There is one man we are supposed to feel empathy for, but it isn’t
President Reagan.

“Killing Reagan” opens with a Jimmy Carter rally in Nashville,
Tennessee, as he hits the campaign trail for re-election in the 1980
campaign. A shadowy and nervous John Hinckley Jr. watches. Holding a
gun, he soon departs, only to be caught by security. Voila. That’s
the beginning. Though the acting is wooden, there is no mystery,
there is no drama.

If our introduction to Carter is to give a brief sense of threat
against him, then our introduction to Ronald Reagan is the exact
opposite. Sitting down with campaign aides, Reagan watches the news.
He sees a news clip of protestors confront him. “You’re just a
racist about trying to get into the White House,” yells a black man.
“Go back home! “Go back home!,” they start chanting.

Reagan orders the television turned off. No more of that. It’s all
we need to know. “It would be nice if you could just stick to the
script,” screams advisor William Casey to Reagan. So much for unity.
So much for truth.

For the record, there is no evidence of Casey ever even remotely
saying such a thing to Reagan. Hell, most of the time people could
not even understand Casey, as his picked up the nickname “Mumbles.”

The movie then skips ahead to twelve days before the 1980 election.
Reagan, the Great Communicator, is depicted as a bumbling mess. He
stumbles, loses focus, and loses patience as his debate prep tears
him apart. He gets visibly angry.

That is how we’re introduced to the Gipper. The successful actor,
the successful talk radio host, the successful two-term governor,
and the near-successful nominee of the 1976 Republican Convention.

There is also a hint of the missing Carter Briefing Books, but it
was me who reveled the truth about the books in “Rendezvous with
Destiny” and proved that they were of no help whatsoever to Reagan
or his team. Alas, the movie doesn’t even get the history right.
Reagan’s 1980 debate prep, organized by Jim Baker, went well. His
first debate prep in 1984 went poorly.

Meanwhile, John Hinckley Jr. — stuck at home — goes into the
basement “to watch the debate,” but in reality quotes Taxi Driver
and caresses pictures of young Jodi Foster. He agrees to see a new
psychiatrist, at his parents’ request. At this point, despite the
obvious creepy vibes, the movie implies how he is not at fault for
his eventual assassination attempt on Reagan, and, in fact, not in
control he is of his actions. It’s a sympathetic look at a mentally
ill man, instead of a look at an evil, near-assassin stalker. He
calls the young Jodi unsolicited, he “wrestles some demons” as he
actually tries to see his “girlfriend.” Several times. He buys a
John Lennon button in New York, then goes to a prostitute to lose
his virginity. Of course, the prostitute looks just like Jodi
Foster, which gets his blood up. All creepy, all odd, all designed
to make us uncomfortable. And yet, about 45 minutes in, the movie
has viewers sympathizing with him. He can’t get a job (reminiscent
of our current Obama economy, it can’t be missed), and his parents
abandon him. He gives his dad a heartfelt, sad farewell speech.
“Thanks for everything you’ve done for me,” he says, breaking up.
These anecdotes, one after another, have us see him in a continuing
sympathetic light.

Reagan, on the other hand, is sometimes portrayed as a buffoon, with
a big teethy grin as he leaves a press conference. The film implies
he doesn’t take the presidency seriously, which is more nonsense. He
was known for his one-liners and witty charm and quips.

We don’t come out of the movie with a greater understanding,
a greater appreciation for President Reagan, or even a
greater
hatred for the maniac Hinckley.

When it comes to the almost-killing of Reagan in Killing Reagan,
it’s undramatic and wooden. There is no build-up to the actual
assassination attempt. One praise that must be given is the
recreation of the scene. It looked identical to the news that we are
so familiar with, down to one man hopelessly asking for a
handkerchief as he tends to poor Jim Brady on the sidewalk.

This movie skips days, sometimes months ahead with no transition.
Only a title transition is slapped on the screen to give any sort of
sequence of events.

Even for a TV movie, this is hardly Oscar-worthy acting. The entire
film falls flat. Even when Frank Reynolds learns that Reagan was, in
fact, shot on live television, his response of “He was hit?! My
God!” is only shown for two seconds, without any lead or follow-up.
It’s just there, for the sake of being there. There’s no emotional
connection for the audience, an omission that ignores Reynolds’
close friendship with the Reagans.

With 20 minutes left in the movie, the most controversial “evidence”
that Reagan is suffering from Alzheimer’s (We can’t emphasize the
quotation marks enough), comes when the doctor informs Nancy that
Ronnie “may not fully come back,” on account of his age, partly.
This is only hinted at. The scene takes 30 seconds, tops. It leaves
a nasty taste in our mouth, and it might as well have been omitted
altogether.

Yet, the implications are clear. “He’s changed,” Nancy says to an
aide. We see Reagan losing his temper. We see his hands trembling.
Though subtly shown, it calls into question the entirety of the
Reagan years, the Reagan revolution. It calls into question all of
the 80s, and all of Reagan’s accomplishments. His legacy, the
influence that Reagan permanently left on the world. In fact, the
movie ends with Reagan’s letter to the American people in 1994, in
which he states his diagnose with Alzheimer’s. The juxtaposition
cannot be missed but nothing could be further from the truth. Reagan
came back, like America, stronger and better.

Funnily enough, one of the commercials during this show was a
trailer to Inferno, part of the trilogy of Ron Howard-directed films
based on the bestselling novels by Dan Brown. It’s appropriate; Dan
Brown’s conspiracy-ridden, juvenile-written books are known for
historical blunders, factual errors, and insulting caricatures of
influential people and institutions in history.

Nothing could better describe Bill O’Reilly’s books.

All of the facts in “Killing Reagan” can be found in much better
material. For one, Del Quentin Wilber’s “Rawhide Down,” which came
out three years before O’Reilly’s book. That book would have been
much better, more accurate, and more honorable to adapt. Wilber
portrays the events before, during, and after that March 30, 1981
date in an emotional way, and with incredible detail. In fact,
Wilber was the first to do so. What a movie that could have been!

Instead, one of the first adaptations of “Killing Reagan” we get is
a shoddy, undramatic movie from a childish, undramatic book that has
no factual citations, two dozen sources, and puerile writing.

At the end of the film, the reader realizes there is no big theme
here. We don’t come out of the movie with a greater understanding, a
greater appreciation for President Reagan, or even a greater hatred
for the maniac Hinckley. We don’t really get any indication of how
close Reagan actually came to dying. We don’t fully understand Al
Haig’s gaff at saying he was in charge. We don’t fully feel the
implication of the Soviet Union during these hours. Instead, when
the movie ends, it just … ends. Nothing else. We don’t come out of
it enlightened. That’s not how a character-driven movie should work.

And that makes it a perfect adaptation for Bill O’Reilly’s book.

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