forget politics- by the end of this did you feel sorry for Nixon?

I had more sympathy for the man, yes, but Langella worked hard to get it. I've always felt the reason Nixon was so wrought up had to do with the fact that he was conflicted. Despite his denials, he had a conscience. He knew what he was doing was wrong, knew most people in the country judged him for it, and was compelled to defend his rationalizations for all of it.

Bush was a different character. A sociopath all the way.

I think the movie was probably too soft on Nixon. He comes across a lot better in the film's version of the interview than he did in the real thing, where he seems smarmy and disingenuous.

As I've said before, I can feel bad for Nixon for some of the things he went through in life, but he was pretty much a scumbag and it's hard to feel much sympathy for him. When he had popularity and generally favorable media coverage during the early years of his term, he was pissed off that praise of him was not unanimous. He spent election night 1972, which he won by one of the largest margins in American history, bitching about George McGovern being a sore loser and how the media was going to portray it. Let alone his various crimes and dirty tricks. His ego was clearly beyond satisfaction.

"Earth first! Make Mars our bitch!"

NO. Langella's performance made him look way more sympathetic than what he really was IRL.
Anyway at least he wasn't a complete a$$hole like Bush. I mean the man was corrupt as hell but he still had enough "dignity" (or guts) to tell the truth to the entire nation about his crimes. Something that I am afraid Dubya will never do.

I have always felt a lot more sympathy for President Nixon then perhaps most other people do.

He was a very troubled, paranoid man who loved our country more then most people give him credit for.

But he turned that love of our country into some desperately poor decisions..

Whether it actually happened or not I felt a little sorry for him at the end when frost presented him with the pair of shoes... it seemed like a bit of a kick in the teeth considering he had shown disdain for them.

the film nixon wasn't anything like the real nixon. the film nixon was like some bizarre hybrid of ronald reagan and walter cronkite. so yeah, at the end i did feel sorry for woltard creagankite. then the film ended.

As one that was of draft age during Nixon's presidency, one who protested the war in Vietnam, one who was interrogated along with my friends by a Secret Service Agent as we waited to view a Nixon motorcade, one who remembers that motorcade as having a most uncomfortable fascistic vibe, one that watched most of the Watergate hearings and cheered as "Tricky Dick" waved good-bye, Frank Langella's superlative performance which does succeed in somewhat humanizing the man, never changed this citizen's extreme dislike of Richard Nixon.

In '68 he ran using the "Southern Strategy" which is racist, he ran as the "Law and Order" candidate which induces fear, he ran as the candidate with a "secret plan" to end the war while four years later American kids were still dying in the jungles of Vietnam, and he ran as the candidate of the "Silent Majority" which by definition means he was a divider as opposed to a uniter. He had a brilliant mind but his insecurities got the better of him which surfaced in very negative fashions and were so severe he was never truly able to rehabilitate himself as far as the American people are concerned. He was that flawed.

Short answer? Hell, no.