Final Days | Gary Sinise, Ed Flanders | What led to President Nixon's resignation?

Final Days | Gary Sinise, Ed Flanders | Inside An American Tragedy

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Final Days

	Final Days Gary Sinise, Ed Flanders Republic Pictures, 1998 average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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What led to President Nixon's resignation?

If you saw All The President's Men (1976), I highly recommend The Final Days (1989-TVM) based upon the book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Lane Smith is excellent as the President of the United States, Richard Nixon. The film deals with the aftermath of the Democratic National Committee Headquarters break-in in the Watergate building, but mostly the secret tapes of conversations that Nixon wanted covered-up from the court and the public, and what eventually led to Richard Nixon resigning, the first president to ever do so. (Spiro Agnew resigned as Vice-President the year before). They made this tv-movie while Richard Nixon was still alive and retired. Patricia Nixon passed away June 22, 1993. Richard Nixon visibly broke down at the funeral and it was televised nationwide. All the surviving Presidents and First ladies attended. Richard Nixon died less than a year later on April 22, 1994. He was buried next to his wife at the Richard Nixon Library and just steps away from the house he was born in.

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Inside An American Tragedy

America has had tragedy upon tragedy to go along with all the triumphs, but few tragedies have ever had as much ink and visual space and time devoted to them as the downfall of the administration of President Richard Nixon due to the Watergate scandal. The 1989 made-for-TV movie THE FINAL DAYS goes inside this uniquely American tragedy as it happened, from the June 17, 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committe in the Watergate building to the moment on August 9, 1974 when Nixon called it quits.

Based on the book of the same name by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, this basically serves as a continuation of the great 1976 film ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN by taking a look at the situation facing the tragically flawed Nixon (Lane Smith, in a very accurate portrayal) and his administration as the result of the break-in, the secret Oval Office tape recordings that Nixon never wanted to ever see the light of day, and the unconscious paranoia that eventually destroyed him, and did significant damage to his place in history. Richard Pearce's fine direction and screenwriter Hugh Whitmore's pointed adaptation of the Woodward/Bernstein book are aided tremendously by some great ensemble acting, including Theodore Bikel as Henry Kissinger; Gary Sinise (of "CSI: New York") as Watergate investigator Richard Ben-Veniste; and Richard Kiley as J. Fred Buzhardt, one of Nixon's many lawyers.

The end result with THE FINAL DAYS is a truly sobering look at how power can corrupt, and absolute power can corrupt absolutely, and, in Nixon's case, with cataclysmic force. Much like Oliver Stone's later NIXON, minus that film's "conspiracies", this is a film to be appreciated for both its message, its acting, and its storyline, which remains as timely today as it was when it aired in 1989, and when the real events themselves were unfolding before us.

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recommendations

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