Nixon

I will start by saying I am an Oliver Stone fan. For some particular reason though I did not expect to like this movie but obviously I did. He actually unexpectedly gave a very fair depiction of Nixon. Nixon really transformed before my eyes in here. That was really something special to see.

The acting was quite good. Anthony Hopkins though totally uplifted this movie. I could imagine many people saying his performance was over-the-top or a bit too surreal at times. Yet that is what really made his performance so amazing. The way he was able to transform the many crazy and totally off the wall aspects of Nixon and make them into a reality. To me as the movie went on I felt I was in some way able to see his paranoia, anxiety, thirst for power and just the simple fact of wanting to be liked. I could see he was more of a troubled and vulnerable man than a monster. He never quite connected with anybody which made him bitter and fueled his paranoia and greed even more. To me Hopkins portrayed this all perfectly, all the complexities and inner feelings of Nixon. Hopkins slipped into this role in way that you rarely see. He became Nixon, and at times I was speechless or should I say thoughtless watching him portray such an important figure in such a way. More and more I felt sorry for Nixon, as he looked more and more like a schizophrenic. To me this role was more psychologically bone-chilling than his role as Hannibal Lechter in Silence of the Lambs and I have no problem debating that.

The rest of the cast was quite good as well. Joan Allen was very good in showing the complex relationship/marriage she had with Richard Nixon. James Woods freaked me out at times displaying that pure evil and hatred at times that Hopkins showed as Nixon. Paul Sorvino was very good as Henry Kissinger. Mary Steenburgen was interesting to watch in the very limited time she played in here. The two actors though other than Hopkins though that really stood out to me were Bob Hoskins and Sam Waterston. Despite Hoskins not giving an amazing performance and having very limited time he gave me chills just seeing J. Edgar Hoover being portrayed in some sort of way. Sam Waterston despite being limited to really just one scene was even more chilling than the rest of the cast(excluding Hopkins) combined in that one moment. That moment was one of the most intense face to face scenes that I have ever seen. It was so memorable.

The directing was very good. It was not the best I have seen from Oliver Stone but it was up there. For the first 45 minutes or so I was a bit confused about what was happening and the flow of the movie but I got used to it. The first portion of the movie did feel unbalanced at times but the feel of the movie got better as it wore on. Going back to that one scene between Sam Waterston and Anthony Hopkins, I felt this scene was one of the best directed and written scenes I have seen from Oliver Stone or anyone ever. That scene was a microcosm of the movie. The motion-sickness, mind scrambling, paranoid feeling of that scene captured the entire movie. The feeling of even seeing the president himself being treated like a puppet, despite not that shocking, was mind numbing to watch. That scene was true testament to the writing and directing abilities of Oliver Stone.

The writing was also very good throughout. It seemed as if everything Stone wanted to get across got across. The writing was not amazing but it certainly served it duty. The cinematography was great though. Stone always knows how to get his point across in the way he photographs a movie even if all of other aspects of the movie fail. That dark Oliver Stonish feeling kept on creeping in on every scene, but also that dark psychological feeling that he had put in Born On the Fourth of July and Platoon also was felt through the cinematography. The music by John Williams, who always knows how to capture a moment musically, was simply perfect in here again.

I can understand this movie being boring to a lot of people or it being considered propaganda. Yet I think this movie is an overlooked masterpiece. Just seeing Anthony Hopkins perform as Nixon is a good enough reason to see this movie. He took control of this movie by force and took it to another level. Despite this being an Oliver Stone movie it is more fair than you would think. Of course this movie may have a few conspiracy theories included in it but Oliver Stone never forces his theories on people. There is a reason why at the beginning at every movie he puts a disclaimer saying that not everything in his movies are facts. Despite it being great I don't know if this is a movie for everyone. This movie seems to be crazy and surreal but isn't that how life seems to be at times as well?

Richard Nixon is one of the most controversial heads of state of the twentieth century. During his tenure as president of the United States, he earned a general hatred almost as high as the power and influence of his office. He was investigated, vilified, attacked but never condemned. Even though I'm not an American nor an expert of these period, I feel it is necessary to make an unbiased and objective historical analysis of this president, I just don't know if that has already happened. Even so, the film we have here didn't seem partial, trying to remain neutral to some extent.

Directed by Oliver Stone, it's not appropriate for people who don't know anything about Nixon, or Watergate, or this period of American history, since the film wasn't wasting time explaining anything. So if you didn't understand why Nixon opened the US to China or what was the Watergate or the Bay of Pigs, I suggest you ignore the movie for now and first go read some books or see some documentaries about it. Another problem I want to highlight is the huge web of conspiracies and obscure theories that the film weaves around the president. It never lets us understand what "crimes of responsibility" Nixon has committed. The film also suggests, without subtleties, that Nixon was a simple man who rose in life but wasn't accepted by the "American aristocracy" because of this humble origin, which left him deeply hurt. I don't know if it's true, but the film indicates that as origin of President's lack of scruples.

Anthony Hopkins assures the main role in an interesting performance, but that's far from being his best. He made a good preparation and tried his best to be Nixon, but has few physical similarities with him, not to mention his extreme difficulty in imitating president's characteristic voice. Anyway, Hopkins was brilliant at his character's psychological work, with most dramatic scenes going on as he, semi-drunk, reviews his decisions while listening to his famous audio tapes. The remaining cast does a reasonable supporting work. I will not close my review without left a word of appreciation to the sets and costumes, which rebuilt the atmosphere and culture of the Seventies quite well, much like the rooms and offices within White House. Not being exceptional, it's an elegant, quality film, that helps us think about an important period in American history.

This is a scary one. A merciless look into the pathology of one weird bloke. Anthony Hopkins may not look like Nixon but he does the role to perfection. It is truly scary.

Great cast. Hopkins is a hard working star. What a shame he lost to the Hoffman aper Cage. And Nixon? What a loser. What a terrible insufferable tragic loser. It surely was a challenge to do this for Hopkins.

The biggest most significant detriment is of course one knows not where fact ends and fiction begins. Stone doesn't exactly have a reputation for avoiding hyperbole.

But taken as a personality portrait it's devastating. You might know your history but you've probably never imagined things were like this. You could have imagined them if you'd taken the time, but this movie brings you there.

It's just a tragic movie about an extraordinarily tragic figure. Stone brought you Salvador where he showed how well he knows the art of movie making; he brought you the screenplay for Scarface; and so forth. He can do it, whether or not he goes too far on some occasions. The movie production itself is very good.

And it's a long one. It's not a popcorn movie. It's extremely depressing and frightful. A look into one very weird pathology. But a 7 out of 10 is not out of order.

I'm not normally a fan of Oliver Stone (in fact, I've NEVER liked an Oliver Stone picture before)but this one just blew me away. The reason I usually don't like him is that, though he is a great technical director and visual stylist, his scripts are heavy-handed and one-sided to the point of absurdity. But not here. In fact, the script is perhaps the most impressive element in this whole movie, not only for how ambiguous and even-handed it is in dealing with Nixon as a character, but also for the brilliant way it moves around in time. It starts with Nixon, feeling embattled in the White House in 1973 as the Watergate hearings are upon him, and uses the device of him listening to his secret tapes to jump back and forth to previous eras, flawlessly moving between past and present to give an impressionistic, kaleidoscopic overview of the man's life, instead of following the staid and ho-hum linear approach most movie biographies take (most recent example: "Man on the Moon", the bio on Andy Kaufman which was a snoozer in spite of a great performance by Jim Carrey mainly because of the dry boring, "This happened. . .And then this happened" approach).

Another reason to see this film is the brilliant, absolutely overwhelming lead performance by Anthony Hopkins; his Nixon may not look or sound exactly like the 37th president (but come on, except maybe for Ed Sullivan, who does?) but he embodies his qualities - strengths as well as weaknesses - to such an enormous degree that he simply BECOMES Nixon, at least for the three hours the movie is on screen.

I have to say, though, I was not nearly as impressed as every one else (critics and general audiences alike) seems to be about Joan Allen as Pat Nixon. It's nothing against her performance, she did fine, it's just that as written, the part is rather weak. In fact, I was much more bothered about the liberties the filmmakers took in fleshing out her character than in all the political events; it's like, whenever they wanted to have someone blast Nixon or act as his conscience, they'd trot out Ol' Pat, giving her some of the most embarrasingly "speechified" moments in all of the movies - almost none of their scenes together ringed true as husband as wife; it was more like Nixon sitting across from the Filmmakers' Conscience. In fact, she's angry at him so often in the film you have to wonder, what exactly does she love about the man? The film never answers (or attempts to answer) this question.

But this one minor quibble is not enough to make me downgrade this film. It is an absolutely stunning achievement by any stretch of the imagination, and it contains some interesting thematic and technical echoes of both Citizen Kane (cavernous high ceiling scenes, a "March of Time"-type newsreel on Nixon, a dinner scene between Dick and Pat at a long, impersonal table) as well as The Godfather (the burnished, half-dark half-light cinematography, several "chamber of power" scenes in tight, dark and claustrophobic rooms)that I found, in context, to be totally appropriate. It paints both Nixon and the times he (and the country) lived through on a grand and mythic scale that was truly awesome and, once again, entirely appropriate. Yes, it's a film that is at times big, loud and bombastic (because so, after all, was Nixon himself) but, just as often quiet, contemplative and told at an achingly *human* level. The contrast between these two states is what gives the film a good deal of its overall power and, as I've said, I never would have believed that Stone would have been capable of doing the smaller, quieter scenes so well.

This is a good film to have on tape or DVD, for two reasons. It's so long, and so dense with facts, characters and events, that you're not likely to want to watch it all the way straight through (the first time I saw it was in the theater and though I was held spellbound, I began wishing for an intermission at about the two-hour mark, not so much to stretch my legs but to give my brain a chance to process all I'd seen and heard so far). Also, and more importantly, the videotape includes after the credits two scenes cut out of the final film for time purposes. In both cases, I believe, a severe mistake was made - these are both, I believe, ESSENTIAL sequences; not just nice to have as an additional bargain, but scenes which Stone should have fought tooth and nail to keep in (even cutting out some others if he had to - my vote would have been to excise a few of those Pat Nixon scenes instead). Once scene involves Nixon's visit to the CIA and another a discussion between Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover in the Oval Office. The first scene is a masterpiece of writing and acting (with Sam Waterston as CIA Director Richard Helms, otherwise in no other scene of the movie) and the other is, I think, key in understanding Nixon's motivation to begin taping his White House conversations in the first place (also - an issue which is touched on no other place in the movie). I feel that these two scenes should be edited back into their appropriate places in the movie; seeing them separated from the rest of the film is better than not seeing them at all, but they really belong as part of the entire story.

Richard Nixon's (Oscar-nominee Anthony Hopkins) life is told from his early childhood days in 1920s California to his disgraceful resignation in 1974 from the Watergate scandal (one of the stupidest and most trivial events of U.S. history). The 37th president of the U.S. lost the 1960 presidential election to JFK and then lost the California governor race of 1962. By 1963 it appears that Nixon is out of the spotlight for good politically and that he is struggling to keep his marriage to Pat Nixon (a superb turn by Oscar-nominee Joan Allen in arguably her finest role) alive. Things turn strange though as Nixon has strange meetings with big-time oil men in Texas (Larry Hagman leading the group) and even with J. Edgar Hoover (scene-stealer Bob Hoskins). It is obvious that there are some potentially sinister things going on from high-ranking people. Soon JFK is assassinated, the 1964 election becomes a mess for both parties as LBJ wins by default and then LBJ decides not to run in 1968. The Republicans once again turn to Nixon, but Nixon (full of self-doubt and inferiority complexes) is fearful that 1968 against RFK will be a repeat of 1960 (Nixon believes that JFK and the Democrats stole the 1960 presidency). More cloak and dagger situations occur and RFK is assassinated in California, leaving the door open for Nixon to win the presidency. Vietnam, a whole host of questionable allies (led by James Woods, E.G. Marshall, J.T. Walsh, David Paymer, David Hyde Pierce, Powers Boothe, Fyvush Finkel) and constant advisement from Henry Kissinger (an amazing transformation by Paul Sorvino, who rivals Hopkins' performance the whole way) end up turning Nixon's life upside down. Soon taped White House conversations and growing paranoia also pops up and public/national/international/military/social chaos ensues. While all this occurs the president's personal life is shown through flashbacks (Mary Steenburgen as his mother and Tony Goldwyn as his older brother dominate these parts of the film). We see two of his brothers dying of tuberculosis, his short courtship of his wife and various other parts of his early life that stand out. The Watergate break-in (led by Ed Harris) continues to be one of the strangest things that has ever happened (the motives of the apparent burglary have never been clear). 18 minutes of missing audio recordings are one of the biggest mysteries of the 20th Century. Director Oliver Stone (who received an Oscar nod for co-writing the script) surprisingly is unbiased with this film. Watching "Platoon", "Born on the Fourth of July" and "JFK" would lead one to believe that Stone would pull no punches with "Nixon". However he gives Nixon's story an element of truth and compassion. There are so many unknown things that went on with Nixon throughout his political career that Stone has to fill in lots of missing pieces with speculations (some that seem very logical and some not so much). Thus the film goes on and on (running about 195 minutes). Even with all the airtime though the film does not move slowly and never becomes dull. In fact it is one of those projects that could have gone on even longer and it still would have been an interest-generator. Whether you like, dislike or are indifferent when it comes to Nixon the person, "Nixon" the movie is an outstanding achievement that stands high with Stone's better works and also deceptively becomes one of the more under-rated and under-appreciated pictures of the 1990s. 5 stars out of 5.