Secret Honor

Robert Altman
1984

"Secret Honor", made during a lull in Altman's career in which he was at outs with much of the film community, is an account of a drunken and disgraced Lear-like Richard Nixon relating his defense into a tape recorder while waving a pistol. It would seem that absolutely nothing is gained from committing the stage play of the same name to film as the picture appears in almost every respect to be a simple filmed play.

Despite exquisite production design by Altman's son the overwhelming absence of an outside world stifles any kind of verism, and those four familiar walls never manage to become anything more than a set. Phillip Baker Hill's depiction of tricky Dick is overly theatrical, and the exaggeration in his characterization, while sympathetic, seems to undermine the fact that old RMN left us a very dark, very serious legacy.

The cartoon-characterization of the president is ham-fisted and the humor is far from subtle. I picture people who are still clinging to their Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers and wish they had the balls to smoke their kids' pot would find this film wildly entertaining.

Review by Brett A. Scieszka