Nixon
Staring: Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, James Woods, J. T. Walsh, Paul Sorvino, Mary Steenburgen
Review by The Ranting WolfCastle
It's difficult to watch a movie like Nixon and take it for everything that it presents. Nobody knows all of what went on during Nixon's Presidency, so when watching this film one must try to distinguish between what is purely speculative, and what may have actually happened.
This movie isn't just about The Watergate Scandal as one may infer, but actually about Nixon's entire life. His childhood, his college years, before he became President and up to the point where he resigns. It's the story of a tortured man who gets in over his head, and is unable to stop the "system."
I thought that this movie was going to be an anti-conservative, anti-republican film under the direction of Oliver Stone who has directed other political movies such as JFK. But it actually isn't. I don't know much about Nixon or his Presidency, but it seems as though Stone portrayed him in a fair way. He isn't made out to be an extremely evil man with deceitful thoughts, and he isn't made out to be the greatest man ever. He was neither. There are points in the film where he makes poor decisions, as he inevitably must have, and then there are parts where he discourages illegal actions. What I'm saying is, although we don't know how he actually acted, we can watch this film and not have to buy into what Stone thinks. Because even if his portrayal of Nixon is biased, it is fair. That is why you can watch this film as more of a fiction than anything. Because although it is loosely based on facts, as almost all films are, it is moreover speculative in nature.
Anthony Hopkins' (Meet Joe Black, The Edge) performance is different. It's different in the fact that he doesn't use an over exagerated voice in order to mimic Nixon and get the point across of who he is supposed to be. He doesn't even particularly look like Nixon, but you believe him to be so. It's not really an imitation, it's more like Hopkins is creating a fictional character. Again, which is why you can watch this film as a fiction.
I didn't like all the talent that was wasted in this film. It had so many great actors in little parts where you hardly even notice them. The worst was Ed Harris (The Rock, The Truman Show), who was one of the men involved in actually breaking into the Watergate room, and was reportedly being paid by Nixon for his silence. But all Harris had was one scene where he spoke, and he only had a couple of lines. Which sucks because I like Ed Harris. Another huge waste of talent is that of Bob Hoskins. Hoskins as you may well know is my favorite actor. He plays J. Edgar Hoover, and he's only in two scenes. Both of which he is portrayed as a flaming homosexual, and openly no less. I'm not sure about this either, but wasn't Hoover's cross-dressing more of a rumor than anything? It seems kind of strange to have him kissing servant boys, and checking out the asses of White House security guards, when he kept it more of a secret. You may also know David Hyde Pierce, who plays Niles on TV's Frazier. He did have a bigger part than Harris and Hoskins together, put it still wasn't a big part. And definitely not indicative of his talents.
The screenplay jumped all around. From '73 to '60 to '25, and back again. It wasn't really hard to follow, but at points I became so engrossed in what was happened, that when it switched back I was a bit disappointed to leave the former theme and start the more current one. Also it is a very long movie, 190 minutes and you can tell. I just got bored with it, maybe if it didn't jump around so much I could have concentrated more. I just think that unless you are a Nixon buff, the subject is too dry to keep people interested for that long. But that's just me.
The more physical direction of the film is probably the best part of the movie. It can be a bit confusing at times, and even maybe a little unoriginal, but overall it's just damn cool. The film switches from color to black and white, then some times it looks grainy and surveillance like. The views shift constantly, from above to below, from steady to shaky and nervous. There are even a couple split second freeze frames while the character is still speaking. It genuinely reflects the emotions of the movie, and does a good job of making the audience feel that emotion. The unoriginal part I mentioned, is during the war scenes there is either a very patriotic tune playing like "Stars and Stripes Forever" or a really cheesy, upbeat number. This really made me think of a couple of Stanley Kubrick's films, like A Clockwork Orange, or Dr. Stangelove, in both films the same type of music is played during periods of "ultra-violence." It seems as though this is done almost to desensitize the viewers, or at least mock such violence.
So overall, I was surprised by this film, but not enough to actually like it. It doesn't shout out an ultra-liberal message like I thought it would, but I just really didn't like the script. It was too long and didn't interest me. The directing was tremendous, but I don't think it, along with good acting, can save a boring script.
50%
