I want to like this movie, but I cannot get past Hopkins trying to be Nixon. Nixon was a big man, a presence. Whereas Hopkins is a smaller man, and really doesn't look anything resembling nixon, in face or height or stature. The hair isn't even right.
I agree - it wasn't convincing. I wonder if Tom Hanks as he is now (2015) would make a better job of it. George Itzin as President Logan in season 4 of '24' did a good Nixon-esque performance but for a movie a bigger draw name would be Hanks.
The idea of Tom Hanks portraying Nixon is an intriguing one. Curious to see if it ever happens.
About a decade ago, when it was publicly confirmed that the "Deep Throat" character from All the President's Men was, in fact, a high-ranking officer at the FBI named William Mark Felt, there were some news reports that Tom Hanks -- or else a company connected to him -- had acquired the rights to make a film-version of Mark Felt's book & life-story. Supposedly the Felt family pocketed about $1m in the deal, although we should obviously be careful about accepting such reports at face value.
But anyway, I mention it now to say that if Hanks really has invested any of his time/money/energy into the possibility of playing Mark Felt on-screen, it would seem doubtful that he ever intends to play Richard Nixon, too. We'll have to wait and see what happens with all of that. There is (or, was) a Watergate-related project called "Dirty Tricks" (based on a Broadway play, I believe) that, at one time or another, was reported to involve several A-list performers. About 8-9 years ago it seemed like it was definitely going to be filmed. But here we are, all these years later, and still it isn't happened.