It's not that the ending was bad, it's that it was too rushed. The film ended one minute after it reached it's culmination. There were no time left for everything to sink in. At least I think that that was the problem. Other than that, it's a very good and powerful movie. I almost wanted to be an american after watching it (you know, that free word and things like that sounds pretty awesome).
Oh, there was one more thing I didn't like - the way all the kids were portrayed in the film. Real children don't act and don't talk anything like that. Yes, that's common in older movies, but here they went too over the top. Like for example those kids sitting at the table in the beginning of the film. Or my favorite - black 10 year old shouting "Come on, bring on the paper!". It felt like some kind of commercial or a propaganda film. But hell do I know? Maybe in America children do work in senate instead of going to school...

Absolutely stunning. Shamefully enough, I went to see it without really knowing what to expect. Captivated by its inclusion in various noteworthy lists and by its laudatory reviews (and because it's Capra and Stewart, after all), I decided to check it and was blown away. It's amazing how a simple story, simple characters and, in its core, an overall simple movie can convey such powerful emotions and transmit such a great and timeless message. Highly recommended.

I kind of expected Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to be something of a precursor to some of the aspirational political fictions I love (The West Wing, for example), and in many ways it was. But Jimmy Stewart's idealistic junior Senator is really the lone good man in a huge corrupt machine that almost destroys him, and so it really isn't one of those utopian stories where civil servants really want our best interests. Alas, the film's right-minded patriotic sentiment hasn't lost its relevance. I wish it had. But it seems more needed than ever. And so Mr. Smith must keep going to Washington to remind us of of what's right. Only the character tends to be naive and cheesy, the movie isn't. It actually does a good job of vulgarizing what the Senate does and how it works (or doesn't), acts as effective satire at times, and provides a killer political climax (though also a bit of an abrupt ending). Hasn't lost its teeth!