Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Nominated for four Academy Awards, "Nixon" takes a riveting look at a complex man whose chance at greatness was ultimately destroyed by his passion for power, when his involvement in conspiracy jeopardized the nation's security and the presidency of the United States.

Oliver Stone consistently impresses me with his political films. Nixon is one that I missed in theaters and haven’t had a chance to watch before but I found it quite enthralling given the rather long runtime. The performances by the cast as a whole are superb and since Nixon is quite a bit before my time I learned more than I ever realized about his efforts as a president. The film gives you some background on Nixon but focuses mainly on his years as the president and the underlying events that eventually led to his resignation. Fans of political drama should not miss it.

This film reminded me a bit of Stone’s Natural Born Killers in its style. The film is presented in a multitude of styles creating an almost frantic visual style that goes from aged to black and white to super sharp. The HD presentation is a bit all over the place, but obviously this is intentional. At times the image can be breathtakingly sharp with great definition and depth while the next moment can be extremely soft and noisy. This makes an overall judgment hard. I can’t imagine Stone wanting any other way though.

The audio is presented in uncompressed PCM 5.1. The mix has its moments of nice dynamics and hard hitting bass from the Vietnam sequences. The sound design does a great job of balancing the film’s visuals and offers the same kind of mixed quality. Dialogue is the focus though and despite some occasional strain and noise, it is delivered with a natural balance and tone. The soundtrack is recorded a bit on the low side requiring me to turn up the movie a bit above normal for comfortable listening levels but once that was done the track was satisfying overall.

This 2-disc edition has two feature commentaries with the director along with a new documentary on the film and the real Nixon. Some deleted scenes and some Charlie Rose segments are also included.

Stone always makes a solid political drama and really opened my eyes to a man I knew little about. The presentation is about as good as it can be given the schizophrenic filming style and fans of the film should definitely add this one to the library. Recommended.