This is the story of two men that time forgot. One was a president, the other his assassin. They lived in tumultuous times and both felt deeply betrayed by the circumstances that led them to this point. After they were gone, the country collectively shrugged and moved on.
Matthew MacFadyen is spectacular as Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President Garfield (Michael Shannon). He balances equal parts pity and empathy in a role that could so easily become a simple joke.
Guiteau is a warning sign; the kind of loser we all dread to recognize in the mirror. He's the kind of guy with big dreams and an even bigger chip on his shoulder who'll talk your ear off about everything he could do if he just got the chance. He's broken in a way that hurts others by presence alone.
McFadyen plays him with a deadpan charm, almost like Guiteau never quite understands why people are laughing, but he's always hopeful that it's with and not at him. He's always on the lookout for a new opportunity, even as each one is inevitably another disappointment in a long line of them.
When he spots Garfield and beelines to meet his gaze, McFadyen plays the moment with reverence and jealousy. The same kind of misplaced adoration and resentment that drove Casey Affleck in the masterful Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. If Guiteau can't be like Garfield, then killing him will have to do. It is a perversion of identity and the natural extreme of idolization.
Michael Shannon plays Garfield as a reticent man thrust kicking and screaming into power. He's probably not even the most competent person for the job. He just happened to be the one to say the least stupid thing in the room at the right time. And then something happens: Garfield turns out to be powerful and momentous in his work. Whatever he lacks in political savvy he makes up for in integrity.
One aspect of the many ironies featured in Death by Lightning is the tantalizing prospect of what America could have looked like under a Garfield presidency. He had only been in office for a few months when Guiteau shot him; again failing at another half-baked attempt at immortality.
The mini-series is just four parts long and would have been far better as a feature film. It is shot and often paced like one. Even the opening credits seem rushed along after the first one to maintain a pace that never quite finds the right rhythm. Sometimes there's too much one in an episode, at others, not enough. A solid two-hour runtime would fix most issues and would allow the solid directing by Matt Ross to shine even further.
And yet, the tremendous double act is so alluring that for the most part, I didn't care as much. It was only in retrospect that I could spot the seams. A midway lull where Guiteau's thwarted efforts repeat over and over would have been the prime spot for a quickly paced montage to trim some fat.
At its best, Death by Lightning is the kind of sharply observed satire that is as deeply funny as it is tragic. More than once I asked myself how America survived in any capacity when its leadership was this chaotic. Today, we have some answers to that, and none of them are good.
