Don't let the title fool you, "The Assassination of Richard Nixon" is not a documentary. Nor is it anything like Oliver Stone's "JFK." Instead the film, set in 1974 and written by Kevin Kennedy and director Niels Mueller, is a psychological portrait of a regular guy pushed to the brink.

Perhaps no one exactly pushes Sam Bicke (Sean Penn) to the brink, except himself. Unhappily divorced, Bicke desperately wants to rejoin his wife Marie (Naomi Watts) and their three kids. He also wants to start a mobile tire repair business with his friend Bonny (Don Cheadle).

But more than anything he wants respect. And in his daily life -- but especially at job as an office furniture salesman -- he feels constantly dissed, constantly undervalued, constantly put in positions of compromise. And, the fact that no one seems to care about him, makes him feel like a nobody.

Most of the people around him understand, or come to understand, that Bicke, who quit his brother's tire business because he felt that accepted sales practices there were deceitful, is off-balance. The result is that he's further alienated from everyone around him.

As Bicke's discontent and paranoia progress he begins to associate them with the government and people in positions of power. And, he begins to focus on then-president Richard Nixon.

Bicke decides he will not remain a nobody forever and figures out a way in which he can leave his mark on society. In order to present a clear picture of himself to the world, Bicke tape records the story of his travails and mails the reel off to Leonard Bernstein, so that the maestro can tell the world about Bicke.

"The Assassination of Richard Nixon" is a powerful film. While throughout much of the film we don't necessarily disagree with Bicke's morality -- which is good at heart -- we grow more and more uncomfortable as his ever more obsessive lust for honesty and respect seem only to accelerate his detachment from reality.

Penn is masterful here and despite quality performances from other cast members -- notably from Watts and Jack Thompson as Bicke's boss -- viewers walk away with Penn's Bicke burned into memory, thanks to his measured and engaging portrayal.

"The Assassination of Richard Nixon," rated R, opens Friday, Jan. 21 at Landmark's Oriental Theatre.