Plot Synopsis

Based on the book "Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency" by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard. In late 1980 the election campaign is in full swing as Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter battle for the Oval Office. With help from his group of trusted advisors, including Jim Baker III, Mike Deaver, James Brady and Edwin Meese and his fiercely protective wife Nancy, Reagan is able to reposition his public persona, easily winning the election. But the early days of his presidency prove rocky as he battles low approval ratings and an unfriendly Congress. At the same time, 25-year old John Hinckley is increasingly spiraling into mental instability. He ignores his parents' pleas to seek therapy or to hold down a steady job and instead fixates on actress Jodie Foster. After a disastrous attempt to visit her at Yale, he decides to try and get her attention with an extreme action: assassinating the president. On the afternoon of March 30, 1981, at 2:27pm, these disparate figures collide with each other and history outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Hinckley fires six shots at Reagan and his entourage as they depart an event, striking a local police officer, a Secret Service agent, Brady and the president. The event sent the White House and the nation into a chaos that rewrote the course of history: The president's popularity surged during his recovery, and the assassination attempt forever changed the intimate dynamics of his marriage.