Nixon Reviews

Okay, but you'll want to know more

Anyone considering renting 'Nixon' presumably wants to know more about Richard Nixon; and most people, even those in the UK, will go into the film already knowing something about him.

Most people will be familiar with Watergate; some people will know about Nixon's diplomatic involvement with China; and others may be aware of his very narrow defeat to JFK in the 1960 presidential election. So, the question is: does the audience know Nixon any better after having watched 'Nixon'? The probable answer is that they'll know more about his life, but will be left slightly in the dark about his soul, his personality, and his place in history.

Oliver Stone tries very hard to make a film that serves as both an historical analysis and a gripping drama. In part, he succeeds; in part, he fails. There is much, historically speaking, that is interesting here, the Cuban facet in particular; but there is also a feeling that much has been left out. Where, for instance, is Nixon's life after Watergate? And while 'Nixon' is, as a drama, initially very compelling (not least because Hopkins is excellent in the part), it is also far, far too long.

The vertiginous camera-angles and shifting film-stocks look great for the first hour or so, but eventually they become another aspect of the film that seems to be masking the truth rather than helping to reveal it.

Rent it, but rent a classic like 'Patton' at the same time, just in case 'Nixon' disappoints.

Ok

Not bad film. Worth watching. Not historical but the way oliver stone saw things

Anthony Hopkins was a pleasure to watch

An outstanding performance from Anthony Hopkins, who only four years earlier was chewing peoples flesh as Hannibal Lector. He completely transformed himself into Richard Nixon and gave the performance of a lifetime. It is the story of the 37th American President who ended the war in Southeast Asia and made peace with both China and the Soviet Union. Unfortunately though, Richard Nixon was mostly hated. He was his own worst enemy and was finally brought down by a series of blunders including; the illegal bombing of Cambodia, lying to the American public, defying popular opinion to end the war, taping every conversation he had in the White House (including conversations with his own family) and hating the Kennedy’s with a passion. Nixon came from a poor family who struggled through life where as the Kennedy’s where well off and able to send the future president JFK off to Harvard etc. Nixon felt that because of his upbringing the American people looked at him very differently. Also, there is the Watergate Scandal to consider, which is the film’s centrepiece and eventually unfolds. I thought this was a remarkable film with great performances by all. Slow at times and very long, this is not a film for the impatient.

Nixon through Olivers eyes

More history according to Oliver Stone... Not sure I knew enough about Nixon and American politics in the 60s and 70s to fully appreciate it. Is also quite long.

Anthony Hopkins is masterful though -a truly great actor. Worth watching for his performance alone.

LEMON TREE'S AND ALL

Bravura, first rate filmmaking from a now diminished talent, Nixon was the tilting point in Oliver Stone's career.

Hackdum beckoned, but not before creating this impassioned, occasionally clumsy, yet moving epic.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Nixon was a complex character...

Or so Oliver Stone would have us believe. Stone again has played around with time here, and I think it's becoming his annoying trademark. Anthony Hopkins is absolutely superb as Nixon but getting inside the skin of Nixon, a tragic figure in history is something we as the audience never feel we really achieve, even with 3 hours of film. It's a shame, but I think if Stone had concentrated his efforts more on the linear structure of stroytelling then we would all have understood everything a little bit more.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Typical Stone

The cast are all excellent, Hopkins especially but the film is too long and sags in places.

Oliver Stone's symbolism is, once again, laughably ham-fisted. He really should look up 'subtle' in the dictionary.

Intense and corrupt

This is a long movie about Nixon as POTUS. Directed by Oliver Stone with Anthony Hopkins as The Man.

A gripping view of how powerful men were corrupted by the pursuit of power itself.

Conspiracy theorists will only have the flames of their delusions fanned into an inferno. JFK, Nixon and all that hold the office of POTUS really could be pawns in someone else’s games. Couldn't they?

This man could have been great, but like so many who chase greatness he failed in the tests put before him. Stylishly made and brilliantly acted, this film is worth the effort.

Reserve the time to see it.

Good history lesson

For those who don't know much about Nixon, this film covers quite a bit, the performances are very good, while it may not be entertaining in the suspense way, I don't think it was meant to be sold that way, it does it's job well, serving your curiousity of what people think of Nixon and his place in history.

The Stone Spin

Oliver Stone is exquisitely gifted in using the skewed camera angle as oblique political commentary. As in 'JFK', he alludes to Nixon's rock-and-a-hard-place alliances with both the Rockefeller-Kissinger faction and the Texas oil barons who finessed the Kennedy assassination in order to bring the compliant Nixon "on board."

Anthony Hopkins' sweaty-upper-lip portrayal of Nixon the man, haunted by Jack Kennedy and a cold virtuous mother, is superlative. To watch Stone's Nixon is to look through a window into history and all of its complexities that belie the simplistic headlines that too many people like entirely too much. Every political leader, good or evil, statesman or politician, should pray to have Stone do a docudrama that explores his moment on the political stage of power. Stone does the turbulent American Cold War era a great service by studying its most brutal pivots: Kennedy's assassination, Nixon and Watergate (why DID they use the same "plumbers" who had been involved in the Kennedy assassination?), violence, media, and child abuse (Natural Born Killers), etc.

My only critique would be that he might have thrown a few more oblique angles to shed more light on how and why Watergate was set up, and by whom. The Texas faction that has so generously rewarded the Bush family was only part of it.