Review of Nixon (1995) by Matt — 16 Oct 2008

Complicated movie. Complicated man. Hopkins hardly looks like Nixon, but he manages to capture enough of him to make him believable. Stone included too much of the unauthenticated "conspiracy" theories -even going so far as to try to connect the dots from Nixon's pals to JFK's death.

..and others. He should have just focused on the known realities -and only some of them, because Nixon was a fascinating man with many stories to tell. I wish they had included more of his domestic policy successes.

For a Republican he created a whole lot of new departments we rely on today, like the EPA. He wasn't painted as a total liar in this film, but rather as a normal man whose web of lies grew beyond his reach.

He was always trying to live up to the approval of his dead mother while ignoring his wife in order to pursue the next thing. It was sad in the end watching him leave the White House, with his dignity forever gone.

Watch "All the President's Men" afterwards -the story of how the entire Watergate scandal was discovered.