Director of 'Death of a President' Defends Controversial Movie's Message

This is a partial transcript from "Hannity & Colmes," October 25, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: A movie that's being talked about a lot this year is "Death of a President." It depicts the fictional assassination of President George W. Bush. It opens in U.S. theaters this Friday.

Joining us now is the man behind the controversial new film — director Gabriel Range is with us.

Look, I believe in your right to make any film you want. In this day and age of terrorism, in this day and age where we have a lot of fanatics out there, I find the whole concept unbelievably irresponsible.

Did you not think that there are people that are going to see this and maybe take an idea like that and run with it? Did you think about that?

GABRIEL RANGE, DIRECTOR, "DEATH OF A PRESIDENT": Well, first of all, the important thing to say is that the film portrays the assassination as a horrific event with terrible consequences. And I really don't think for a minute that anyone who sees this film could ever leave the cinema thinking that it's a good idea to try and kill President Bush. So...

HANNITY: Images are so powerful. And people are — you know, for example, if somebody watches Madonna on TV, young kids they're impressionable. And they walk like her. They dress like her. They talk like her. They wear the same clothes.

You've got to — do you not have a responsibility to think of the impact, the impressions that could be made on people?

RANGE: I think we absolutely do. And I think that the film makes as very strong case that violence is, you know, that — to articulate the pernicious effects of violence.

There are plenty of films that come out every week that glamorize violence, that glamorize the use of violence…

(CROSSTALK)

RANGE: This film has a very strong anti-violence message.

HANNITY: God forbid that anyone takes the idea and watches this film was — was impressed by it. You know, would you feel in any way that — second thoughts, doubts, if people could — that they could have an impression made on them about this?

RANGE: You know, I mean, again, what I would say is I think the film has a very strong anti-violence message. I mean, the film...

ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: You know, it's interesting. If any nut job who sees this film decides to go out and enact some kind of act of violence, something else would have set them off. You have no idea of knowing what's going to set somebody off.

That person would clearly be mentally unbalanced, and anything could have triggered that.

People who see this film should know what the message of the film is.

RANGE: Right.

COLMES: And if you haven't seen it, it's shocking, the premise.

RANGE: Right. I mean, the first thing I would say is that, you know, the film takes the assassination of President Bush, it takes that horrific event as a starting point for an exploration of what I think are some really serious issues.

COLMES: What's the message you want to get out with this film?

RANGE: Well, what I hope is that people — the film will make people reflect on the way the War on Terror has been conducted. It will make people reflect on the connections the administration drew between 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq.

And so I hope — and I think those are all things that we should be talking about and that we should foster a debate on.

HANNITY: Appreciate your time.

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