Review of Nixon (1995) by Carlos I — 04 Mar 2015

It taken me awhile to finally Watch "Nixon" from director Oliver Stone (Born on the Fourth of Jury, Natural Born Killers, Platoon). One of the reasons, I was never interested in this movie, because I felt that Anthony Hopkins looks nothing like Richard Nixon and as a person, I never really got into politics, whatever it is a good thing or bad thing. Some people's lives are really into politics but I can't never get into it. But I love movies, that's my life for the most part. I felt that Stone never got to top "Natural Born Killers", which some people felt, it was his last great film. I felt, he is been struggling ever since. Although he still makes the occassional good movie but most of them lacks any real bite.

"Nixon" is a movie that is very loosely based on his live. For the most part, it is a very fictional story with some truths or at least, Stone (Who also co-wrote the script) makes "Nixon" gets to make interesting and it shows fragments of him as a man. It reminded me of his later film "W." at times. But since "Nixon" was made in the mid 1990's. Stone's visual style with his camera work comes close to "JFK" and even "Natural Born Killers" at times. Besides Hopkins' terrific and sometimes over the top Oscar nominated performance. There is some excellent supporting performances here from Joan Allen in a Oscar nominated role as his long suffering supportive wife, James Woods as H.R. Haldeman, unrecongizable Paul Sorvino as Henry Kissinger (The make-up work on the actor is terrific), Powers Boothe as Alexander Haig, Ed Harris as E. Edward Hunt and others cast members. Since the movie has plenty of familiar faces, how matter how small or big, their supporting roles are...most of them have memorable roles in it.

"Nixon" is an ambitious film, at times, it can be a difficult movie to follow if you know nothing about these real-life characters that the actors are playing in it. It is one of those movies, that you have to pay attention to dialogue and detail. "Nixon" is a extremely long film, it might bore some viewers to death but if you get into, it can be an fascinating picture. Sometimes the plot can be all over the place and at times, the film's tone changes quite often. The scènes in the film can be Political Satire to Darkly Funny to Drama to Thriller. In Stone's film, it wants to be all and somehow it works.

It was an box office bomb, back in 1995. Which it was the slow decline of Stone's movies after that (Although "Nixon" and his next film "U-Turn" do have cult followings). The movie also got two Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay that it was shared with Stone and two screenwriters:Stephen J. Rivele and Christopher Wilkinson. Also John Williams' beautiful, sometimes eerie music score got an Oscar nomination as well.

I am glad, I finally seen "Nixon" after all these years. Would I revisit this again ? Sure, I would for the bigger than lifes performances in it, Stone's visual style and Williams' fantastic score in it. Since I never seen the original theatrical cut, the Blu-ray is the Director's Cut, which over 20 minutes of additional footage were added. I am not sure, what was added back to Stone's Director Cut but I heard Sam Waterson's scene as the CIA director Richard Helms was added back to Stone's Director's Cut.

Overall "Nixon" does have moments of greatness but at the end, like Stone's later film "W.", we don't know much of "Nixon" expect just glimpse of it, especially in his personal life. Stone is having fun with the real-life characters in it and sometimes putting them in very absurd but intriguing situations for better or worse. One of the highlights of "Nixon" that Stone goes for the innovative techniques with this style, especially mixing film stocks. For the most part, "Nixon" feels like a documentary but done in a highly artistic expression and being outrageous at the same time. In a way, it feels that Stone didn't want to end the movie, he wanted to show more. Blu-ray includes commentaries tracks, an documentary, vintage featurette with director Stone being interviewed by Charlie Rose, deleted scènes with introduction by the director and the original theatrical trailer.

"Nixon" is a fascinating and longish picture that won't appeal to some tastes but if you get into the story and the characters, you might have yourself being entertained by the whole thing in this messy but always intriguing picture.