"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."
-- H. D. Thoreau, "Walden"
About ten minutes into the Assassination of Richard Nixon, one wants to take Penn's character and: 1) shake him, 2) sit him down and talk him back from the ledge, or 3) send him to a shrink. This is the portrait of a slightly disturbed man whose condition is exacerbated when it could seemingly be so easily ameliorated. One is at once sympathetic and not. This is further amplified by the misguided target of his angst -- Richard Nixon -- who certainly was ignoble, even if he was simply more a symptom of the society Penn's character accused on injustice, rather than its master. Perhaps the greatest irony here is not that Penn's character's decline is justified by society's maladies (as the character thinks) but that the viewer knows society's neglect is what allows the decline to continue unabated. This, of course, *is* a political statement that Penn's character would have liked: One cannot pull one's self up by one's own boot straps. Rather, it is a community affair.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364961/
