GALLERY
BUY: DVD / Blu-ray
RELEASED: 20 December 1995
CAST
Pat Nixon … Joan Allen
Clyde Tolson … Brian Bedford
Alexander Haig … Powers Boothe
Frank Nixon … Tom Bower
Joaquin … Wilson Cruz
Gordon Liddy … John Diehl
Charles Colson … Kevin Dunn
Murray Chotiner … Fyvush Finkel
Julie Nixon Eisenhower … Annabeth Gish
Harold Nixon … Tony Goldwyn
E. Howard Hunt … Ed Harris
Trini Cardoza … Dan Hedaya
Nelson Rockefeller … Edward Herrmann
Richard Nixon … Anthony Hopkins
J. Edgar Hoover … Bob Hoskins
Martha Mitchell … Madeline Kahn
John Mitchell … E.G. Marshall
Earl … John C. McGinley
Ron Ziegler … David Paymer
Orator … James Pickens Jr
John Dean … David Hyde Pierce
Herb Klein … Saul Rubinek
Henry Kissinger … Paul Sorvino
Hannah Nixon … Mary Steenburgen
John Ehrlichman … J.T. Walsh
H.R. Haldeman … James Woods
SYNOPSIS
An incredible all-star cast fight for elbow room in Oliver Stone’s sprawling and talky examination of America’s most notorious president (up until the nineties, at least). Anthony Hopkins is wonderful and tragic. Saul Rubinek (AKA Donny Douglas) pops up, as do loads of familiar faces.
DAVID’S ROLE
White House counsel John Dean. Though he disappears for huge swathes of the movie, it’s an interesting role in that it’s devoid of comedy, and he’s quite muted and sombre. Also, he’s playing a living person.
The real Dean worked as a consultant on the movie. David was able to pick Dean’s brain as part of researching the role:
“Most of the things I asked him were very technical. Whether he picked what he wore to testify very consciously. What the temperature in the hearing room was. Oliver was very particular in adjusting tone and nuance.”
CRITICAL RESPONSE
“The squeeze reduces most performances to cameos, though James Woods (H.R. Haldeman), Powers Boothe (Alexander Haig), David Hyde Pierce (John Dean), E.G. Marshall (John Mitchell) and Madeline Kahn (Martha Mitchell) register strongly.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
“David Hyde Pierce is a touch too morose for John Dean; Brad Pitt would have had the right pretty-boy quality …” – John Simon, National Review
“At the top of a long list of superlative supporting players are Joan Allen, who gives the female performance of the year as Pat Nixon; David Hyde Pierce as the mirror image of John Dean.” – Hal Hinson, Washington Post
BEST BITS
- Dean gives Nixon an update on the “Watergate clowns” on Air Force One; suddenly there’s an ominous jolt of turbulence, and Dean gives a little yell.
- Dean’s dead-of-night meeting with Howard Hunt (Ed Harris) on a bridge, where Hunt warns him that his “grave’s already been dug.” Pure film noir.
- The Oval Office scene where Nixon tries to get Dean to put his name to a complete report of Watergate. Dean squirms in his chair and politely tells him he’s not going to be the scapegoat. Then Nixon pulls the doorknob off (intentional?).
BEST LINES
[to Hunt, who has just snuck up on him]
“If you’d been that stealthy at the Watergate we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
DEAN: There’s a cancer on the presidency, and it’s growing. With every day that–
NIXON: Jesus, y’know, everything’s a crisis with these upper intellectual types, these softheads. The average people don’t think it’s much of a crisis. I mean for Chrissakes this isn’t Vietnam, no one’s dying here. Isn’t it ridiculous?
DVD EXTRAS
The Election Year edition (available from the store) features deleted scenes, audio commentaries, a Beyond Nixon documentary, and interviews.
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