On July 13th, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old loner from Pennsylvania, attempted to assassinate former U.S. President – and current Presidential nominee – Donald Trump. Failing in his intended mission by only wounding Trump, though he did fatally strike one rally attendee before being killed by the Secret Service Counter Sniper Team, the still-unexplained attack only further fueled the chaos of an already unpredictable world.
It also provided the unlikeliest of focus towards Queensland filmmaker Neil McGregor and his documentary Hinckley: I Shot the President, which centered itself around John Hinckley, who, over four decades ago, gained notoriety for his attempted assassination on then-President Ronald Reagan. He was found not-guilty of the crime – itself a deranged bid to impress actress Jodie Foster, who he had grown obsessed with after seeing the film Taxi Driver – by means of insanity, and in being granted release from the Washington, DC-based psychiatric hospital he was homed within, came a series of regulations that have only been lifted within the last two years.
The lifting of those restrictions allowed McGregor – whose last documentary was the far lighter Growing Happiness – to delve into the psyche and professional aspirations of Hinckley, whose mental diagnosis included atypical psychosis and severe narcissistic personality disorder, who looked to music as a form of therapeutic release; he was a songwriter years before his assassination attempt. The aforementioned restrictions set forth by the federal court in his release regarded that he must not talk to the media and that his music can’t be released for public consumption.
Understandably, Hinckley’s music, which when finally released into the technological ether, garnered particular prominence, though, arguably, due solely to who he was as a person. The music, which sits predominantly in the folk-rock-cum-country genre, speaks to his poetic temperament, but it can’t help but be entirely tethered to who he is – or was – as a figure on the wrong side of American history. We see in McGregor’s film, which wisely doesn’t vilify nor excuse his behaviour, that his music is what he wants to be known for and wants to primarily discuss in media interviews; we see a clip where he’s doing a phone interview with an Australian outlet who express that they need to mention his background as an introduction to his segment. Hinckley reluctantly agrees.
Given the awful act he committed – not to mention the terror which he inflicted on the life of Foster, whose voicemail messages are featured throughout where she expresses her trepidation in contact with him – it’s quite a feat that the film elicits a true sense of empathy for Hinckley. He speaks of his actions with the full understanding of responsibility, though due to the nature of his then-deteriorating mind, he does so in a way that almost separates his present self from his past. It’s a fascinating dichotomy.
Though Hinckley: I Shot the President was conceived and produced long before the Trump assassination attempt – McGregor has spoken about how Hinckley’s music purely came to him through a rabbit hole search around folk music for his previous film, which subsequently spurred a Google search as to his biography – it’s difficult to not watch the film in a certain light. Regardless of such, it’s a film that’s at once informative and entertaining, and having an outsider’s view like that of an Australian only benefits the storytelling aspect. The intensity around Presidential campaigns and heavy debates on gun control is something we as a nation will never experience in the same manner, and McGregor looking at the facts of Hinckley’s actions and removing any emotion or prejudice serves the film to its fullest capacity.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Hinckley: I Shot the President premieres August 30th on the platform Launchpad. For early access from August 27th and for more information on how to pre-order the film, head to the official website here.
