Our Nixon

Reality cant be altered, even by a conservatard. Right wing traitors should be shown for what they are.

Another "Nixon is a creep" assassination movie. Pointless.

Although the goal of the home videos was to provide the public a firsthand look at the White House administration's role before and after the Watergate scandal, I believe it demonstrated how a young group was appointed to leadership positions and how authority was abused. The majority of the men appear to be regretful that they were apprehended and punished, and they wish they could have carried out the same deeds more cleverly and without leaving any evidence behind. Upon listening to the recordings, it appears that the president attempted to deny any knowledge of any wrongdoing or plot because he was aware of the taping system. However, I was shocked to learn that H. R Haldeman admitted to the president that he was fully aware of every move made. The president was willing to put his own close aides or "brothers" under the bus in order to avoid indictment, which I believe demonstrated how much more cunning he was. The others accepted their penalty and, unlike most criminals, were permitted to carry on with their occupations after being freed.

The film features footage from 500 hours of 8mm movies shot by Halderman, Erlichman, and Dwight Chapin, however none of the footage shows Charles Colson or John Dean. Did they sue their way out of this production? It seems odd that such major players in the White House with roles significant enough to be incarcerated for regarding participation in the Watergate affair are absent during every occasion these three individuals independently decided to shoot film. The only logical explanation is that they were intentionally omitted for some reason and the filmmakers should have included either in the film or in the closing credits what the reason was.

Robert Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin all worked as insiders in Richard Nixon's White House. They had one other thing in common: all three apparently liked to take home movies, and they took a lot of them during their time on Nixon's staff. Given the medium, this turns out to be basically what you would expect - not a documentary filled with new revelations about Watergate or Vietnam, but a personal look at the centre of power; a voyeuristic experience for the viewer more than anything.

Nixon was a complicated man. A consummate politician whose public persona was nothing like the private man. But that's already well documented. This film merely reinforces what we basically already knew about him.

Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Chapin are all spliced into this in excerpts from later interviews. The most interesting part of this is probably from those interviews when they discuss the fallout from Watergate, that eventually led to all three of them resigning from the White House and eventually serving time in prison. Otherwise, there's not much new information about anything to be found here, but it is a voyeur's delight. (7/10)