The president is fatally shot by a sniper after he addresses an economic forum at the Chicago Sheraton Hotel, before which an anti-war rally had taken place.
After authorities earlier arrest and interrogate war-protesting detainees, Jamal Abu Zikri (Malik Bader), an IT professional of Syrian origin, becomes the prime suspect.
He calls for the legislation of PATRIOT Act III, trying to increase the investigative powers of the FBI, the police, and other government agencies over American citizens and foreign residents as he contemplates attacking Syria.
As his wife Zahra (Hend Ayoub) listens to the verdict with family attorney Dawn Norton (Patricia Buckley) in a packed courtroom, Zikri is convicted of killing the U.S. President and sentenced to death based upon dubious forensic evidence.
The most incriminating piece of evidence is a copy of a top secret presidential itinerary outlining, to the minute, President Bush's Chicago whereabouts on 19 October 2007.
The news report ends while the U.S. Government continues investigating how presidential assassin Al Claybon obtained that top secret document.
Although all imagery related to Bush's assassination was created using digital special effects, an apparent actual death, captured on tape, is included in the film during a piece of war footage in which an Iraqi insurgent prepares to launch a rocket, but is shot in the head first.
[....] If people go to the cinema expecting to have some great moment of catharsis watching the president being shot, I suspect they're in for a pretty big surprise.
Special features include interviews and commentary with screenwriter Simon Finch, editor Brand Thumim, line producer Donall McCusker and director Gabriel Range.
"[10] Hillary Clinton, then junior United States senator from New York, told The Journal News of Rockland, Westchester, and Putnam counties at the annual New Castle Community Day in Chappaqua that, "I think it's despicable.
"[13] Following its release in Canada and the United Kingdom, many American movie theater chains including AMC, Regal, and Cinemark refused to run the controversial feature due to its depiction of Bush's potential assassination.
The website's consensus reads, "In this unconvincing fictional documentary, the tense 30 minutes that lead into the title event is outweighed by the boring, melodramatic hour preceding it.
"[17] In the Village Voice, J. Hoberman said it was "dramatically inert, but a minor techno-miracle" and that it "skews more theoretical than sensationalist ... Bush is presented as a martyr.
"[18] Of the critics who liked Death of a President, Rex Reed of The New York Observer identified the film as "Clever, thoughtful, and totally believable.
The actors chosen for interview segments (including the mom from Freaks & Geeks as a presidential speechwriter) are unerringly authentic as real people, speaking spontaneously before a documentary lens -- even when it's clear they've rehearsed in their heads what they're going to say, and may even have told these same stories any number of times before.
"[23] Indiewire critic Andre Seewood wrote that the film does not "suggest that [George W. Bush] actually be assassinated by British agents.
"[24] Seewood further wrote that it is "not a direct insult to an enemy but hypothetical criticism of [UK's] ally cleverly disguised as a television news journal in countries where freedom of speech is mutually respected.