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Nixon
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by Walt Disney Video
Sales Rank: 13857
Price: $14.99
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Oliver Stone's controversial drama about the Nixon years in the White House stars Anthony Hopkins in a genuinely great performance as the scandal-plagued president. The film attempts to wed suggestions of Nixon's formative experiences as a boy to his political connections with shady movers and shakers and finally to his self-destructive tenure in the Oval Office. The Watergate scandal is revisited rather impressionistically--it may be hard for viewers who weren't alive then to get a sense of what the crisis was about. The parade of stars playing figures in Nixon's orbit--J.T. Walsh as John Ehrlichman, James Woods as Bob Haldeman, David Hyde Pierce as John Dean, etc.--is fun if a tad distracting. Joan Allen got a well-deserved Oscar nomination as First Lady Pat Nixon, and Hopkins got one as well. <i>--Tom Keogh</i>
Viewer Reviews
As a filmmaker I appreciate Oliver Stone, his provactive, political, conspiratorial, curious, enigmatic, ominous visions of Americana are the stuff of high entertainment. Right or wrong, his works are wonderful cinema, it doesn't matter if his version is slanted to the left, it is a distinct vision and he is skilled at executing it.
Be that as it may Nixon is no JFK. Though both are named for presidents of the same era, one is about a murder and it's associate conspiracies-presented in staggering detail, while the other is a psychological Greek-styled high drama of a hugely important personality, flawed and potent, crumbling and explosive.
Anthony Hopkins disappears into the role, and as these things usually do, a great actor and a great part/material make the best of art. Hopkins makes Nixon the uncomfortable, paranoid, awkward, occasionally warm, humorless titan I wonder that he was. Again, it doesn't matter if he is right. Such a secretive administration and time has to be interpreted when records are classified...sounds familiar doesn't it? Joan Allen is fantastic in a difficult, angry role and is the only source for bringing a sense of fraudulance, pity and heart to a man consumed by control and power, order and hubris. The supporting cast is pretty amazing too, Paul Sorvino's Henry Kissinger and E.G. Marshall's John Mitchell come to mind.
The extras on this extended edition are good. A doc called Beyond Nixon and a very good interview with Stone by Charlie Rose.
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