The Final Days

The thing about a film like "The Final Days" is that how much you enjoy the experience depends directly on your general interest in the subject matter. Myself, I'm not terribly interested in the character of Richard Nixon. This is one of several portrayals I've seen of the man, all of which I watched for alternate reasons (either the director, actors, or the general accolades directed toward it). I watched this film because I'm a fan of director Richard Pearce (Threshold, Country, The Long Walk Home, A Family Thing). Fred Murphy's cinematography is also very nice, though you'd hardly know it from some of the terrible VHS copies available.

There are certainly some great performances here. Lane Smith is totally believable as Nixon - a person who's honestly more of a caricature than anything else. David Ogden Stiers plays his role with a much stronger confidence than usual. The periodical approach of having a short paragraph of narration by various characters is engaging, giving you valuable insight. Eventually, the story begins to feel crushed under its own weight. At well over two hours, it demands a seriously engaged interest on the part of the viewer. Still, there are extremely powerful passages that keep it all together. Don't let the fact that this was produced for television fool you - Pearce creates a higher feeling that would be expected from such. If you're interested in the story of Nixon and Watergate, this is undoubtedly the film to see. All others pale in comparison.

While almost everyone in the Washington press corps at first thought of the June 17, 1972 break-in at the Watergate hotel/office complex as a "third-rate burglary", reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post took up the story, which would soon rank with the JFK assassination, Vietnam, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks as one of the most heartbreaking events in American history. Their discoveries of all the nasty goings-on in the administration of Richard Nixon during the 1972 presidential campaign led to the Watergate scandal, which was detailed in their memorable book "All The President's Men", and the classic 1976 film of the same name with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford that came soon after. Their follow-up book "The Final Days" took up their precise reporting with an in-depth look at the things that caused Nixon to lose his grip on power. That book became the basis of a superb made-for-TV political drama that aired on ABC-TV on October 29, 1989.

THE FINAL DAYS is a hard-hitting look inside both the administration and the very mind of Richard Nixon himself, portrayed by Lane Smith with equal amounts of sympathy and paranoia. Given this tendency by those on the Right to paint him as a victim and those on the Left to paint him as a monster, Smith wisely takes the middle ground in his portrayal of the 37th president, never falling to a caricature, a pitfall that is so easy to fall into. Through Richard Pearce's direction and Hugh Whitemore's screen adaptation of the Bernstein/Woodward book, we are privy to many of the familiar elements we have all read about and seen: the catastrophic knowledge that Nixon had all of his White House conversations taped; his flight to keep those tapes private; and the unconscionable paranoia that had festered inside of him since the Communist witch hunt of the early 1950s that led to his own destruction. As was the case with ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, the fact that we know the eventual outcome of the proceedings hardly makes THE FINAL DAYS a merely good but predictable docudrama. What makes it a superb docudrama is in finding out how we go to that bleak conclusion of Nixon being forced to resign from office in August 1974 under the threat of impeachment by Congress, and conviction and removal by the Senate. Surrounding Smith's accurate performance of Nixon are such distinguished actors as Theodore Bikel (as Henry Kissinger), Susan Brown (as Pat Nixon), Richard Kiley (as Nixon's lawyer J. Fred Buzhardt), Gary Sinise (as Watergate investigator Richard Ben-Veniste), David Ogden Stiers (as Alexander Haig) and James B. Sikking (as Attorney General Elliot Richardson).

Unsurprisingly, given that the Watergate scandal was still as much an open wound on the American psyche as Vietnam, THE FINAL DAYS, when it first aired, was greeted with considerable outrage from the usual places on the Far Right. The real Richard Nixon, even with less than four and a half years left to live, was as livid about THE FINAL DAYS as he and his most rabid supporters had been about ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN (which, after all, had been released a mere twenty months after his resignation). But the truth of the matter is that Nixon's actions as president in engaging in political sabotage, wiretapping, eavesdropping, conjuring up an Enemies List, and so forth, continue to have devastating consequences for the United States as a nation in general, and for our system of government in particular. His abuses of the powers of the office of the President, a product of long-standing anti-Commie paranoia and a win-at-all-costs, slash-and-burn mentality towards politics and his opponents, destroyed his own legacy; and all those qualities are ably embodied by Smith's performance here, as they would be by Sir Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone's later 1995 political bio-pic NIXON.

Though it can be said that seeing THE FINAL DAYS, like both NIXON and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, is like seeing political suicide being re-enacted for the entire world to relive, what we are really watching is the stark difference between how we idealize ourselves and what it sometimes is in actuality, which is not always a pretty picture. Such a stark picture, in the end, is the legacy of THE FINAL DAYS; for like ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, it is not only about a political scandal, it is also about those dark corners inside the American Dream. It is also not only about the downfall of Richard Nixon, but arguably a portent of things to come in the age of Donald Trump as well, which itself, has proven to be incredibly catastrophic.

Just want to state early on that this film is indeed low-cost and the production quality reflects it. Except that point, this is one of the best political films ever produced. I have been interested and studied about Mr. Richard M. Nixon, his administration, and the Watergate affairs quite thoroughly. I can judge this film to be one of the most accurate, impartial, and humanly dramatized films out there. What it is done right in the first place is to approach the story and all of the characters with compassion. There is no Republicans, Democrats, Nixon lovers, or Nixon haters when it comes to a human tragedy. This is indeed a tragedy of power and people who are enslaved by it. Richard Nixon in this film has been portrayed not as good or bad, but as a humanly flawed and indeed tragic character. In "Nixon" and "Frost/Nixon" of later years and productions, we had to be dragged back into Mr. Nixon's younger years, so we could appreciate his agonizing thirst for power and success and to understand his subsequent behavior. This film does not need to do that. Just by showing the "real-time" Nixon in scene after scene, we can relate to his pains and agony of losing power. How he most desperately wooed people towards him in order to gain their support, respect, liking, or even love is almost unbearable to watch. I for one dread Mr. Nixon's negative impact to the world around him, and yet deeply sympathize this man to the core. Lane Smith became President Richard M. Nixon without any disbelief. He must have understood his character most deeply, otherwise such a performance could never have been conceived. Other characters of Alexander Haig, J. Fred Buzhardt, Leonard Garment, Pat Nixon, Rose Mary Woods, Archibald Cox, John Sirica, etc. never physically resembled whom they played, but we subscribed to all of them because of their flawless performances. Richard Pearce's direction is also without a missed fire. Too bad it is low-cost and meant only for television consumption, otherwise "The Final Days" would have been lauded as the gold standard of the Nixon films that came and will come.

In response to the reviewer who wondered if Nixon saw this movie, He did indeed.

Richard Nixon viewed the movie before it was released and changed his phone carrier because he objected to the movie's portrayal of him and Watergate. (AT&T was the sponsor) As I recall, prior to the movie's broadcast to the nation, AT&T released a prepared statement in response saying that they valued all of their customers including Mr. Nixon but that they believed that the film's portrayal was fair and accurate.

I would have to agree. Indeed I found the film's treatment of Nixon to be sympathetic to the man without being an apology of his actions.

Lane's performance was brilliant and was well supported by the rest of the cast. I give the screenplay high marks for its historical accuracy and effective pace.

This is a film for political science majors, those of us who lived through it, or those with a particular interest in the subject and main players. I will admit to being all three....and I gained a very important and new insight into Nixon's resignation. It is brought out twice that Nixon at all costs did not want an investigation into the money trail because it would bring focus back on Bay of Pigs funding. Consider the possibility that his resignation may have in part been a "patriotic" act to avoid this. I would recommend a viewing trilogy in this order: Nixon, Frost Nixon, and then The Final Days. For comedic conclusion the one about Elvis getting DEA badge from President Nixon. Review the players first....hope you enjoy. I would have liked more newsreel footage, and some authentic audio recordings of speeches too...but still enjoyed and recommended highly if you possess the suggested prerequisites.