Nixon (1995) Reviews

Nowadays, Oliver Stone has pretty much lost his stellar reputation but there was a time that his politically oriented features were eagerly awaited around the world by many movie watchers. This movie came at a turning point in his career. Indeed, back then, Stone was still doing pretty well but, after this movie, his work won’t have much any impact anymore, I’m afraid. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, for the Americans, Nixon has always been perceived as the ultimate boogeyman but the guy was actually really popular back in 1968 up until he really messed up with the whole Watergate thingy. Since then, it has been forgotten that he was actually a rather effective politician (he ended the Vietnam war after all) who might have suffered from megalomania, paranoia and what not. Stone tried to juggle with all these elements but only partially succeeded in giving a really striking portrayal of this notorious figure. One thing remains though, Anthony Hopkins is a terrific actor. Even though he didn’t look like the guy at all, he gave as usual a solid performance. After portraying Richard Nixon, John Quincy Adams, Alfred Hitchcock, Pablo Picasso, Van Helsing, Zorro, and of course Hannibal Lecter, we can assume at this point that Hopkins could portray anything and still be awesome and completely convincing. To conclude, even though it wasn’t a masterpiece, it was still a really interesting feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested by the subject.

Oliver Stone's Nixon is a visual historical masterpiece depicting a time period of political turmoil inside the United States. Anthony Hopkins turns in one of his best performance and stands above a star studded cast. Quite long, but well done.