Triumphant in Victory, Bitter in Defeat. He Changed the World, But Lost a Nation.
1995-12-22
$44.0M
192 min
A look at President Richard M. Nixon—a man carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders while battling the self-destructive demands from within—spanning his troubled boyhood in California to the shocking Watergate scandal that would end his Presidency.
Wow, this was a pretty fair movie wasn't it? And it came from Oliver Stone. One would almost expect it to be a paranoid mess, but it was done pretty well.
Hopkins did a great job too... except maybe looking a little too old for the role, but he captured a lot of Nixon's mannerisms, a lot of how he spoke and moved. It was far from uncanny, but he really did nail the essence of the character and that is almost better than cloning him.
Joan Allen fails though. She doesn't exactly ape Pat as well as she could and you are left with the impression that she doesn't understand who she was depicting.
And then you have little hints at the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories and, even though I supported them, I don't think that they had a place in a movie about Nixon. They felt alien and X-Files and you are left doubting that said conversation ever took place.
Aside from all of that, though, this seems like a great film that was fairly done, about someone that it would have been far too easy to stereotype as a drooling monster. Stone humanized him, and that took heart and talent.
