Headhunters

Hodejegerne; crime thriller, Norway, 2011; D: Morten Tyldum, S: Aksel Hennie, Synnøve Macody Lund, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Eivind Sander, Julie Ølgaard

Oslo. Roger Brown works as a headhunter and is married to Diana, who runs an art gallery. In order to compensate for his 5'5 height, Roger steals valuable paintings at private homes by inserting forged copies, with the help of Ove, a security guard who temporarily disables alarms in said homes. Roger meets Clas, a former employee of the Dutch GPS company HOTE, who wants to become the CEO of another GPS company, Pathfinder. Upon stealing a Rubens' painting from Clas' home, Roger finds out he is having an affair with Diana. When Roger finds Ove poisoned, he is hunted by Clas who wants to kill him, and is tracking him via a microscopic GPS tracker inside a hair gel on Roger's hair. Clas wants to steal Pathfinder's technology secrets. Roger shaves his head bald, returns to Ove's house, Clas is there and shoots at him, but since Diana secretly switched his bullets with blanks, there is no effect, and thus Roger shoots back and kills Clas. The police concludes Ove and Clas killed each other, while Roger makes Diana pregnant.

Excellent "Headhunters" is a Scandinavian thriller done the right way: it is not only suspenseful, but also intelligent and sophisticated. It sets up a giant Arukone-style puzzle storyline with a lot of plot points, but all of them are connected into a whole, have a point and purpose, and reach a satisfying conclusion in the end. Most of the kudos goes to the novel by Jo Nesbø, who planned this storyline, and the genius director Morten Tyldum who is able to make the viewers completely forget they are watching a "foreign" Norwegian film and are with time simply engaged and glued to the screen, in a genuine, basic sense for making a story come alive. The brilliant Nikolaj Coster-Waldau stands out in the role of the villain Clas. "Headhunters" start off as a sly heist comedy, but then switches gears and turns into an intense Hitchcockian thriller with bigger stakes involving corporate crime, when the protagonist Roger is being hunted by Clas, with several clever details and plot twists that are totally unexpected. 

In one of the most insane situations, Roger hides in an outdoor wooden toilet in the countryside, and is shocked to see Clas coming towards it with his killer dog through the window. He cannot escape. So what does Roger do? He opens the toilet seat and hides inside the underground dump of the pit latrine, holding only a paper tube above the surface, so when Clas enters the wooden toilet, he seemingly doesn't find nobody there. Later, after Clas is gone, in a black-humored moment, Roger cannot start his car, so he simply escapes the farm driving a tractor! The finale is incredible, with a plot twist so clever it is a treat (among other, Roger instructs Diana to exchange Clas' bullets with blanks during their "affair"). On another level, it is a personal story about a man with an inferiority complex who realizes that his worth is not measured in money or success, but in the love of his wife Diana who saves him in the end, in a runabout way, and the thriller story is in the end only used as a therapy for their relationship crisis, which is resolved in a pleasant way. A highlight of Norwegian cinema.

Grade:+++

Recollections of the Yellow House

Recordações da Casa Amarela; black comedy / art-film, Portugal, 1989, D: João César Monteiro, S: João César Monteiro, Manuela de Freitas, Teresa Calado, Ruy Furtado

Lisbon. Joao de Deus, a man in his 50s, complains to his landlord Violeta that he has bedbugs, but cannot find any evidence of it. Joao feels weak and has sore testicles, so a doctor prescribes him a treatment. Joao is fascinated by Violeta's daughter Julietta, who plays oboe in a music band; while he also sees a prostitute with a puddle. When the prostitute dies, Joao goes to her room, rips her puppet with a knife and finds money hidden inside. Feeling rich, Joao attempts to rape Julietta and gives her money, but then runs away from the residential building. Now homeless, he survives thanks to a local kitchen. Joao buys a military uniform to enter a barrack for a celebration to get free beans, but is discovered and sent to a mental asylum. Thanks to a friend, Joao is able to escape.

Why did the director Joao Cesar Monteiro think that his character is interesting? Or funny? Or even entertaining? Because this misconception, on which the whole movie is built, costs him the movie. It is perplexing that his "Recollections of the Yellow House" was ranked in a local poll as the 3rd best Portuguese film by 2 0 2 0—the voters either have poor taste or the cinema of Portugal is in deep trouble. "Yellow House" is a peculiar, vague, confusing, and overall poorly planned out film revolving around the scrubby Joao de Deus (played by director Monteiro himself) who at first feels weak and ailing in the first half of the film, but then finds a new fascination with his landlord's daughter Julietta (among other, after she leaves the bathroom, he drinks the soap water from her bathtub, and observes her pubic hair he found), living in the same residential building. One expects that this will be the theme of the movie—how a man feels his life entered an autumn, but somehow finds a new spring in a woman who awakens his vitality. But no. It's not even that. Joao tries to rape her, she refuses, and he runs away scared from the building, never to return again, some 80 minutes into the film. 

The remaining 40 minutes are then wasted on random episodes of Joao living as a homeless man, buying a military uniform, landing in a mental asylum... All this is disconnected, ill-conceived and disorganized. What is the point at the end? There isn't any. The whole film is composed out of moderately interesting episodes which never connect as a whole, and even the best ones are the those with someone else besides him in the frame. Monteiro crafts long scenes of Joao sitting on bed, drinking a pill, taking a sip of medicine from a spoon and looking at specially designed underwear he has to wear for his sore testicles—but this is not interesting. Some actors-directors, like W. Allen or R. Benigni, are able to pull it off because they are interesting and funny to watch, but Joao is neither. He is not idealized nor presented as perfect (in one scene, Joao visits his old mother just to borrow all the money from her and then disappear), but neither is there a reason to watch him. The fact that the film lacks some style or creativity or ingenuity (only one match cut some 56 minutes into the film is commendable) is also detrimental. "Yellow House" is one of those examples where one character is the whole film, but since the main character is so stunted and insipid, the whole movie follows the same pattern as him. 

Grade:+

Sambizanga

Sambizanga; drama, Portugal / Angola / Congo / France, 1972; D: Sarah Maldoror, S: Domingos de Oliveira, Elisa Andrade, Jean M'Vondo, Dino Abelino

In 1 9 6 1, during the Portuguese colonialism, Domingos Xavier, a driver of a bulldozer at an construction site in Dondo, Angola, is kidnapped by the secret police from his home and brought to a police station for interrogation. He is accused of joining the underground Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). His wife Maria takes her baby with her and walks all the way to Luanda to search for Domingos in one of the jails. Domingos is tortured and beaten, but he refuses to name any MPLA members. He dies in prison. Maria is devastated by the news of his death. MPLA members hear about him and decide to attack the jail, thereby starting the Angolan War of Independence.

The first African feature film directed by a woman, Sarah Maldoror's "Sambizanga" is also one of the first films depicting the Angolan War of Independence from the Portuguese colonial rule, or better said, the event that triggered it, the enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention and torture at a prison in Luanda. Since it depicts this rarely thematized historical event, "Sambizanga" has noble, ambitious merits, but its execution is weaker, suffering from too much empty walk and overstretched storyline. The two brief moments which show the protagonist Domingos being mistreated and abused in jail during the interrogation, but he refuses to give away any names of the independence movement (just as he is about to take a sip from a beer mug, one interrogator slaps him from behind), are probably the strongest bits, lifting up the interest of the viewers and engaging, but this is disrupted and diluted by the rather boring, bland storyline of his wife Maria walking on and on, on the road, from one police station to another, which is much weaker. Maldoror needed more cinematic-stylistic inspiration, for a more versatile viewing experience, since the movie is too formal to truly ignite on a higher level. Still, she painted a picture of the country at that time. Some episodes are authentic precisely because they seem as if they came from a documentary (women washing their clothes on a river; workers mining rocks with hammers).

Grade:++

No, or the Vain Glory of Command

Non, ou a Vã Glória de Mandar; art-film, Portugal, 1990; D: Manoel de Oliveira, S: Luís Miguel Cintra, Diogo Dória, Miguel Guilherme, Luís Lucas

A dozen Portuguese soldiers are driving in a military jeep during the Angolan War of Independence, among them Lt. Cabrita, Manuel, Pedro, Salvador and Cpt. Brito. They talk about the futility of keeping colonial rule when most of European powers left Africa. Cabrita, who studied history, recounts historical examples of Portuguese battles and wars, including the Battle of Toro in 1476 and Battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578. The soldiers arrive at a military base. The next day, the walk by foot in the jungle, but are shot at by rebels in an ambush. Cabrita is wounded and dies in a hospital. The date is 24 April 1 9 7 4, the day of the Carnation Revolution, which would later grant all of Portuguese colonies independence.  

"No, or the Vain Glory of Command" is a meditation on the history of Portuguese (colonial) wars and its futility, seen through the prism of the Angolan War of Independence, advocating for the abolishment of any kind of imperialism, irredentism, annexationism and colonialism altogether, and instead calling for the contribution of science and culture in humanity. The director Manoel de Oliviera uses a peculiar, hermetic set of episodes without a real storyline, indulging too much in this as an art-film instead of an film for the universal viewers, but it has its moments. The best part is the opening 20-minute sequence where the camera observes some dozen Portuguese soldiers driving somewhere in the Angolan jungle on a military jeep, but who suddenly start discussing some philosophical contemplations about conflicts in general. For instance, one soldier mentions how he assumes that African colonies could one day become independent from Portugal, just like Brazil once did, upon which the other soldier, Salvador, responds: "Independent? Colonies that have been ours for five centuries?! This is no Vietnam! To hell with your worthless talk!" Lieutenant Cabrita, who studied history, then brings up the comparison with Viriato, rebel leader of Lusitanian people from the area of present day Portugal, who also fought for independence from the Roman Republic in 2nd century BC.

Salvador also laments that the world calls them colonialists: "The "democratic" Russians grabbed half of Europe without further ado. And the Chinese are no better. They conquered the Tibetan people and exploit them as they please." Another soldier also laments: "And by reuniting those tribes we created foundations of a country, or a multicultural nation." - "Exactly. And our language served as an agglutinating element. Creating structures for a future nation." The rest is less interesting and engaging. The regressive episodes which show all the failures of Portuguese wars and battles, such as the Battle of Toro in 1476 and Battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578, are more schematic than they are genuine, regardless of all the opulent costumes and horses, though the same actors who play soldiers in the modern story also play soldiers of these historical events, underlying the theme of a "curse" of doomed wars which just waste lives, without achieving anything with a lasting, permanent value. Empires come and go, only the people and their development remain. The Angolan War of Independence should have been expanded and depicted in more detail, and not only a brief skirmish near the end. It's all too artificial, arbitrary and truncated. Nonetheless, the movie becomes even surreal in a dream sequence of a paradise island visited by Portuguese sailors in the middle of the film, and some dialogue is interesting ("Sometimes I think that the Universe and mankind aren't but an evasion of God's imagination").

Grade:++

Island of Loves

A Ilha dos Amores; art-film, Portugal / Japan, 1982; D: Paulo Rocha, S: Luís Miguel Cintra, Clara Joana, Zita Duarte, Yoshiko Mita, Atsuko Murakumo, Erl Tenni

A biopic of Portuguese writer and poet Wenceslau de Moraes. He is a Navy official in Macau in 1895, married to Chinese woman Atchan with whom he has two children. He separates from them and moves to Kobe, Japan as a Portuguese consul. Wenceslau marries O-Yone, but she dies from a stomach disease, so he moves to her native city Tokushima, where he visits her grave every day. During World War I, some Japanese are against Wenceslau, mistaking him for a German. He then has a relationship with O-Yone's niece Ko-Haru, who also dies. Atchan visits him and begs him to return to Macau to live with their grown up kids, but Wenceslau refuses. He dies alone in the house, discovered by neighbors when the stench of his corpse was already decaying. His sister Francesca keeps his letters. 

This biopic of Portuguese writer Wenceslau de Moraes who decided to live in Japan is meditative, trying to be poetic by reciting his poems, yet the director Paulo Rocha stubbornly refuses to depict the more interesting details from his life, and instead almost deliberately shows only the most uninteresting bits. Some fundamental questions are left vague: why did Moraes decide to travel to Japan? What fascinated him about said country? How did he learn Japanese? How did he meet O-Yone, his Japanese wife? How was it for him to walk on the streets of Kobe, go shopping and interact with locals? None of this is shown in the film, and that is a fatal flaw. Rocha only shows ellipses from his life: for instance, after his life in Macau, Moraes is suddenly shown riding a carriage in Kobe, with O-Yone already married to him. Why was their meeting skipped? Rocha cuts short some parts, but prolongs others unnecessarily. After the pointless first 30 minutes, indulging is some sort of surreal poetry including images from modern day Japan, the story finally starts, and Roche uses the technique of one scene-one frame, with long takes that last up to 10 minutes, but at almost 3-hours of running time, the movie is definitely overlong. Some scenes are inspired here and there: for instance, some 53 minutes into the film, Isabel takes on the role of a maid, as the camera zooms in on a mirror in the house, depicting the reflection of Moraes and O-Yone while sitting in the bath; or the elegant transition some 105 minutes into the film, where a woman is pushing a man in a wheelchair, they go behind a war memorial, and a nurse exits from the other sides, pushing a bed on wheels, as the title says: "Canto VI: The Little Lord of Lives". In the final scene, the six actors are seen standing in front of the camera on top of a building, holding photos of the characters they played in the film, and burning them on the table. "Island of Loves" will satisfy fans of art cinema, but for the rest it can drag until it becomes bland.

Grade:++

April Captains

Capitães de Abril; historical drama, Portugal / France / Spain / Italy, 2000; D: Maria de Medeiros, S: Stefano Accorsi, Joaquim de Almeida, Frédéric Pierrot, Fele Martinez, Maria de Medeiros, Manuel João Vieira, Marcantónio del Carlo, Rita Durão, Luís Miguel Cintra

Lisbon, 25 April 1 9 7 4. Portugal is waging colonial wars in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique, under the dictatorship of Marcelo Caetano called Estado Novo. Fed up with this state, Captain Salgueiro Maia wakes up soldiers from his barrack in Santarem in the middle of the night, and tells them he will start a coup d'état to bring back democracy. Disillusioned by wars, most soldiers, including Major Gervasio, follow him in a military column to Lisbon. They take over the building of the Minister of Defense and encounter almost no opposition. The people on the streets support them. Dictator Caetano and his staff flee to a military barrack and shoot at people, but are surrounded and eventually agree in negotiations led by Maia to evacuate. Caetano flees to Brazil. The revolution ends in a day, and only 4 people are killed. Portugal is transformed into a democracy. Professor Antonia's lover Emilio is released from prison, but this means the end of her marriage with Manuel, a military officer. 

The first feature length narrative film about the Carnation Revolution, "April Captains" is one of the happiest, most uplifting and optimistic movies you will ever see. It is comprised out of pure idealism, so much so that it soothes the soul, and it is even more incredible that all this really happened. It is the feature length debut film of actress Maria de Medeiros ("Pulp Fiction", "Henry & June") who hereby gives a detailed chronicle of Portuguese history: it has such a natural story flow that once you start watching, you get addicted and have to see it to the end, whereas the whole storyline is filled with engaging little details that are easy to identify with. The setting is already established in one sequence in a pub, where military officer Manuel returns from fighting in Africa, and stretches out his hand to his acquaintance Virgilio, a leftist old man, but the latter does not accept it: "Don't give me your hand because I won't shake it!" Later on, Virgilio insults him and other Portuguese soldiers, calling them "professional killers" who "enjoy killing Blacks". The dictatorship is shown in other scenes as beneath contempt: an interrogator questions student activist Emilio, reading out a political movement from his report: "RMLP - TML. This ideology isn't for the illiterate." 

Nonetheless, the revolution is never presented as black-and-white: there are several unusual, but historically accurate situations that are highly comical. For instance, four soldiers in civilian clothing actually locked themselves out of their own car during the night—but were saved by a police officer who helped them break into said car using a knife. The four soldiers later start taking their civilian clothes off to dress into military uniforms, but two gay men knock on their window, mistaking them for something else. Finally, when the four soldiers arrive to the radio station, they knock, a man opens the door, and a soldier introduces himself: "Coup d'etat, may we enter?" The main highlight is the protagonist, Captain Salgueiro Maia (excellent Stefano Accorsi) whose indestructible enthusiasm and elation are so contagious that they don't only charm all the 200 soldiers to follow him, but also all the viewers, too. This is a rare example where a youth's energy is so positive that it galvanizes and transmits this to the energy of the entire film. One of the most ingenious tricks he plays is the one where he places news of a coup d'état, so the Minister of Defense lets a military unit inside, ostensibly for protection from said coup d'état threat—only to find out the military unit they received is actually Maia's, who now has them under his control. Portuguese cinema is often on the margins, out of the zone of interest of Europeans, but by highlighting the Carnation Revolution, which kicked off the Third Wave of Democracy, this film somehow made Portugal cinematically immortal. Most of the best best movies of certain countries are often depressive, dark, negative—but "April Captains" is a rare instance where one of the best Portuguese movies is also one of the most positive ones. 

Grade:+++

The Green Years

Os Verdes Anos; drama, Portugal, 1963; D: Paulo Rocha, S: Rui Gomes, Isabel Ruth, Ruy Furtado, Paulo Renato

Lisbon. Villager Julio (19) arrives to the city via the main train terminal to stay with his uncle Afonso, who secured him a job as an apprentice at the shoemaker Raul. Julio meets maid Ilda and they start a relationship. Julio is both fascinated and overwhelmed by the metropolis. When Afonso tells him he shouldn't see Ilda anymore, Julio starts a fight with him in a pub, but is saved by a British tourist. Julio proposes Ilda, but she refuses because he doesn't have enough money for them to live alone. Julio arrives one evening at the apartment of Ilda's boss, telling he wants to talk to her. When the boss leaves them alone, Julio stabs Ilda with a knife and flees on the street.

Voted in one local poll as the best Portuguese film of the 20th century, "The Green Years" is an intelligent, calm, restrained and subtle depiction of a clash between the rural and urban mentalities, but it is still fairly overrated and dull. The director Paulo Rocha depicts the change of the 19-year old protagonist Julio from an innocent, introverted, humble lad from the village at the beginning up to an extroverted, aggressive and spoiled brat in the end, caused by his life in the metropolis. It speaks about the unspoken psychological currents urban people are unaware off, since this is simply the hectic way of life in the cities. Some contemplations about certain life observations are clever, for instance: "But when you become a man, it's a different kind of romance. The kind of that forces you to straighten out your life, to the point that others can't mess it up" or: "For him, the only man who is not a fool is the one who makes fools of others." The main weight of the film is the love story between Julio and Ilda (very good Isabel Ruth), but it is of varying success, since some episodes are monotone and grey, while others are more interesting (for instance, the sequence where Ilda proudly wears all the fancy dresses of her boss for Julio). Unfortunately, despite these formalities, the movie is not that engaging in its substance, which is a tad too bland, since "The Green Years" are never quite able to "heat up" the inclination of the viewers, not even in the drastic ending which feels more like a stunt than a real conclusion to this story.

Grade:++

The Wedding

Svadba; comedy, Croatia / Serbia, 2026; D: Igor Šeregi, S: Rene Bitorajac, Dragan Bjelogrlić, Linda Begonja, Vesna Trivalić, Nika Grbelja, Marko Grabež, Roko Sikavica, Anđelka Stević Žugić

Miljenko, the owner of the Zagreb chain store Cromax, is shocked when his daughter Ana, working in London, phones him on his birthday and reveals she is pregnant with Nebojša, a Serb. Nebojša's dad, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, Vuk, is also shocked to find out his soon to be daughter-in-law is a Croat. However, since Miljenko is in debt, and he could clear it by expanding to Serbia's market, whereas Vuk wants to finance a Belgrade metro, but its EU funds are frozen due to a veto of a Croatian politician, the two men decide to accept the wedding between Ana and Nebojša to mutually settle their business problems. The wedding is planned in Crikvenica, but a lot of problems arise, including if it should be a Catholic or an Orthodox wedding. Nebojša and Ana wed outside of this chaos on a boat by a skipper. Ana gives birth and the families reconcile. 

Croat-Serb relations often make for good movie topics, and Igor Seregi's "The Wedding", which thematizes a wedding between two Croat-Serb families, surprisingly became the highest-grossing Croatian film up until that time, with over 400,000 tickets sold at the local box office. The first 20 minutes of "The Wedding" are good because they deliciously set up the quirky concept, and several jokes are good there (for instance, Nebojsa having a video call with his parents to tell them about his pregnant girlfriend, telling vaguely that she is "from our areas"; when Miljenko says that there will be no official photograph of the wedding, which will be handled by grandma, who adds: "I will only photograph our side of family!"). But after that (starting from around the entrance of the rapper), the film slowly fades away, and the remainder is just a routine empty walk on auto-pilot. The actors are enthusiastically speaking out their mediocre lines, but at the end of the day, they are still just mediocre lines. The film is a blend of a soap opera and a sitcom, without a more versatile creative latitude. It's as if they just wrote some good jokes at the start, and then just gave up and delivered a standard, thin storyline without inspiration. The lazy finale seems to have been just added to finish the film, not to reach some climax of humor or offer some good bits. A small highlight is Serbian actress Andelka Stevic Zugic as Dragana, who has some comic authority ("We need to get a horse." - "A horse?" - "Am I in a cave with an echo, or why are my words constantly being repeated back to me?"), and she is much more interesting than the rest of the characters. Surprisingly, the wedding couple is highly marginalized and we do not find out much about them. It is a solid film, but overall, they could have made a much more imaginative story from this concept, since its potentials were left unused.  

Grade:+

Johnny Suede

Johnny Suede; comedy, USA, 1991; D: Tom DiCillo, S: Brad Pitt, Catherine Keener, Calvin Levels, Alison Moir, Michael Luciano, Samuel L. Jackson

Brooklyn. Johnny Suede wants to be a rock n' roll star. Unfortunately, his hairdo is bigger than his talent, and thus he has to work as a wall painter to pay his rent. Johnny is practicing playing guitar with his friend Deke, trying to form a band. Johnny starts a relationship with Darlette, even though her jealous boyfriend lives right across the street, and hopes to make it since Darlette's mom works for a music producer. However, Darlette finally reveals she doesn't love him. Johnny's next girlfriend is Yvonne, but he constantly postpones moving in with her. Johnny follows a woman in the subway and sleeps with her in her apartment. When he returns to Yvonne, who prepared birthday presents for him, she smells a female perfume on him and realizes he cheated on her. They argue and break up. However, Johnny later returns to Yvonne's place and says he's sorry.

An inadvertent forerunner to the cartoon character "Johnny Bravo", Tom DiCillo's feature length debut "Johnny Suede" is a vague, thin and strangely underdeveloped film. The meandering story without a clear goal or purpose is all over the place, hopping from episode to episode, all until the disappointing, inconclusive ending which feels like a cop-out. Nonetheless, it is notable for featuring the then unknown Brad Pitt in one of his early leading roles, here playing the swab title hero with a 6-inch hairdo sticking up above his head, allegedly done without a wig. Suede is an exaggerated, but still palpable depiction of the lower class trying to make it big by following their dream, but the harsh reality always gets in their way and leaves them right where they are. However, this grey routine somehow contaminated the whole film, which is unable to be hip enough. Some good jokes manage to lift the film up from its drab mood: for instance, the dialogue between Darlette and Johnny when they first meet at a night club: "You remind me of a prince in a fairytale." - "With that pink dress on, you remind me of a strawberry ice cream cone." In another one, Johnny is so annoyed by two men in suits in the subway train, where one imagines the love of his life will just show up eventually by destiny: "Yeah, she's out there. Somewhere." So Johnny sarcastically adds: "You know what, you're right, she is out there, in fact I just saw her in the next train, she's all dressed up as Cinderella, asking everybody if there is a stupid idiot who looks like you!" There is even a dream sequence where a dwarf stabs Johnny, which might have influenced DiCillo in his next film "Living in Oblivion". "Johnny Suede" never really connects as a whole and feels more like patchwork, but has one highlight: Catherine Keener, who is excellent in her supporting role as Yvonne, Johnny's much more consequential girlfriend.

Grade:+

Nixon

Nixon; drama, USA, 1995; D: Oliver Stone, S: Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, J. T. Walsh, James Woods, Powers Boothe, Paul Sorvino, E. G. Marshall, Bob Hoskins, David Hyde Pierce, Kevin Dunn, Fyvush Finkel, Mary Steenburgen, Ed Harris, Madeline Kahn, Dan Hedaya

A chronicle of the 37th American president Richard Nixon. As a Republican, he ran for president in 1 9 6 0, but lost in the debate against Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy. Nixon promised his wife Pat that he would not run again. However, he did and was elected president in 1 9 6 9. He continued the Vietnam War and even expanded it through US bombing of Cambodia, making him even more unpopular. However, his Chief of Staff Harry Haldeman and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger supported him. In 1 9 7 2 Nixon met with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. In his second term, the Watergate scandal, a covert attempt at wiretapping the Democratic headquarters in Washington, D.C., took its toll, and under pressure, Nixon resigns in 1 9 7 4.

Despite complaints of Nixon family members, Oliver Stone's biopic is probably the most humanistic portrait possible of the 37th US president Richard Nixon without losing its balance and objectivity. Even though he hated his presidency, Stone strives towards a neutral, unbiased and professional depiction of the politician, who is here excellently played by Anthony Hopkins: he reproduces an impeccable accent of Nixon, but does not physically resemble him, and thus certain prosthetics on his nose and jawline would have been welcomed. The crystal clear cinematography by the brilliant cinematographer Robert Richardson is stunning, all the supporting roles are well cast (including Bob Hoskins as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover), whereas some insights are surprising (for instance, the detail that E. Howard Hunt blackmailed the president (!) and demanded money for his trial of the Watergate scandal). However, overall, at 3-hours of running time, "Nixon" is perplexingly unfocused and disorganized, with random, excessive scenes and overlong running time, seemingly hoping from episode to episode without some tighter grip of a narrative thread. For instance, except for Nixon and his wife Pat (Joan Allen), we do not find out much about any other character in the film, who are just random supporting wheels. Nixon's meeting with Mao Zedong is handled almost superficially. Still, the movie looks modern even today, and several little details have weight (during a dinner on the yacht where he was discussing expanding the Vietnam War, Nixon's steak starts to bleed on the plate; upon Haig saying that they cannot get around the Supreme Court demanding the tapes, Nixon adds that he picked three of them there; Nixon observing Kennedy's painting: "When they look at you, they see what they want to be. When they look at me, they see what they are").

Grade:++