Nixon (1995)
I know it’s not very popular to criticize Oliver Stone, since he’s created such revered masterpieces as Platoon and JFK, I have to say his judgement was seriously impaired when he cast Nixon. Anthony Hopkins? If I thought long and hard, I could probably come up with a worse choice, but right now I’m drawing a blank. Not only do Richard Nixon and Anthony Hopkins not share one molecule of a similar appearance, but everyone knows Anthony Hopkins can’t do accents! If you’re not going to look like Nixon, you’ve got to at least sound like him! Anthony Hopkins is a disaster. He was so terrible, I turned the film off. I couldn’t listen to him utter “Bunny” one more time.
To be fair, because I have no desire to be mean for no reason, Anthony Hopkins wasn’t Oliver Stone’s first choice. Reportedly, Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, and John Malkovich were offered the part first. Stone also considered Gary Oldman, Robin Williams, Tommy Lee Jones, and Gene Hackman before offering it to Anthony Hopkins. I’d like to think Stone wasn’t really happy with Hopkins’s performance, and I’d like to think it was his terrible imitation that made the movie a box-office flop, but there’s no way to know for sure.
I’m sure you don’t need a warning, but card-carrying Republicans are going to want to avoid this movie. Oliver Stone is not conservative-friendly, and he doesn’t even try to paint President Nixon in a positive light. In this three-hour-fifteen-minute biopic, he includes memories from Nixon’s childhood up through and past the Watergate scandal. All the famous names that one would expect to be in a Watergate movie are included: Joan Allen as Pat Nixon, David Hyde Pierce as John Dean, Bob Hoskins as J. Edgar Hoover, Paul Sorvino as Henry Kissinger, J.T. Walsh as John Ehrlichman, James Woods as H.R. Haldeman, and Sam Waterston as Richard Helms.
In the greatest of ironies, Dan Hedaya, the man who played the ultimate Nixon in Dick, has a small role in the film, as does Saul Rubinek, who played a fantastic Henry Kissinger. Apparently, everybody wanted to be in this movie, for reasons I can’t fathom. It’s an atrocity, and anyone who watches it as a history lesson on President Nixon will be very poorly educated. But, Ed Harris, Powers Boothe, Mary Steenburgen, E.G. Marshall, David Paymer, Annabeth Gish, Tony Goldwyn, Larry Hagman, Edward Herrmann, Madeline Kahn, Robert Beltran, John C. McGinley, Michael Chiklis, and Marley Shelton didn’t think it was a mistake to act in the film. While it was nominated for four Academy Awards in 1996, I can’t recommend watching it even to see how atrocious it was. Take my word for it, please.
More Sam Waterston movies here!
To be fair, because I have no desire to be mean for no reason, Anthony Hopkins wasn’t Oliver Stone’s first choice. Reportedly, Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, and John Malkovich were offered the part first. Stone also considered Gary Oldman, Robin Williams, Tommy Lee Jones, and Gene Hackman before offering it to Anthony Hopkins. I’d like to think Stone wasn’t really happy with Hopkins’s performance, and I’d like to think it was his terrible imitation that made the movie a box-office flop, but there’s no way to know for sure.
I’m sure you don’t need a warning, but card-carrying Republicans are going to want to avoid this movie. Oliver Stone is not conservative-friendly, and he doesn’t even try to paint President Nixon in a positive light. In this three-hour-fifteen-minute biopic, he includes memories from Nixon’s childhood up through and past the Watergate scandal. All the famous names that one would expect to be in a Watergate movie are included: Joan Allen as Pat Nixon, David Hyde Pierce as John Dean, Bob Hoskins as J. Edgar Hoover, Paul Sorvino as Henry Kissinger, J.T. Walsh as John Ehrlichman, James Woods as H.R. Haldeman, and Sam Waterston as Richard Helms.
In the greatest of ironies, Dan Hedaya, the man who played the ultimate Nixon in Dick, has a small role in the film, as does Saul Rubinek, who played a fantastic Henry Kissinger. Apparently, everybody wanted to be in this movie, for reasons I can’t fathom. It’s an atrocity, and anyone who watches it as a history lesson on President Nixon will be very poorly educated. But, Ed Harris, Powers Boothe, Mary Steenburgen, E.G. Marshall, David Paymer, Annabeth Gish, Tony Goldwyn, Larry Hagman, Edward Herrmann, Madeline Kahn, Robert Beltran, John C. McGinley, Michael Chiklis, and Marley Shelton didn’t think it was a mistake to act in the film. While it was nominated for four Academy Awards in 1996, I can’t recommend watching it even to see how atrocious it was. Take my word for it, please.
More Sam Waterston movies here!