Oliver Stoned.

• Author: Peters, Justin
• Position: JFK, NIXON, OLIVER STONE, AND ME: An Idealist's Journey from Capitol Hill to Hollywood Hell - Book Review

JFK, NIXON, OLIVER STONE, AND ME An Idealist's Journey from Capitol Hill to Hollywood Hell by Eric Hamburg Public Affairs, $26.00

AT FIRST GLANCE, THE PREMISE of Eric Hamburg's new memoir, JFK, Nixon, Oliver Stone and Me, seems very cinematic. A cross between Mr. Smith Goes To Washington and The Player, Hamburg's tale of an idealistic young congressional aide who leaves Capitol Hill for Oliver Stone's Hollywood--only to have his dream of making intelligent, socially responsible films crushed by sleazy dealmakers and greedy executives--is quintessential big-screen material: the ruination of ambitions, the defiling of innocents, and a paranoid, drug-addled antagonist. Yet, like so much else that emerges from Hollywood, the book fails to live up to its billing. Neglecting the big picture, Hamburg gets so bogged down in mundane details and petty gossip that by the end, you feel like you did "after Batman and Robin or Lethal Weapon 4: All you want is your time and money back.

In 1991, Hamburg was an aide to Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) and a wonk obsessed with the JFK assassination. Following the release of Stone's film JFK that same year, there was a public clamor to open the files of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, and Hamilton, prodded by his young aide, was at its head. During the course of his work on the project, Hamburg became acquainted with Stone, and a short time later, penned a star-struck letter to the director offering his services on future film projects. To Hamburg's surprise, Stone accepted, and he was off to Tinseltown.

The time during which Hamburg worked for Stone was a tumultuous one for the controversial director, characterized by a series of forgettable movies (U-Turn, Any Given Sunday) and a much-publicized substance-abuse problem. JFK, Nixon, Oliver Stone and Me is ostensibly a record of this period, the decline and fall of Oliver Stone as told by his man Friday. Hamburg naturally places himself at the center of the narrative and presents himself as a latter-day Mr. Smith, adrift in a sea of venal Hollywood sharks and second-handers. Whether or not it's a put-on, Hamburg certainly comes across as the prototypical rube: naive, dependable, earnest to a fault.

But, as odysseys go, Hamburg's is an especially uninteresting one. His main accomplishment was shepherding Nixon from script to screen, and while the details of this endeavor are kind of interesting, they're not...