Frost/Nixon

Released: 2008

MPAA rating: R

Runtime: 2:02

A movie about a right-wing politician made by a solid left-wing director is always a recipe for controversy. Right-wingers would automatically see it as a biased attack against one of their own. "Frost/Nixon" actually manages to avoid that pitfall. Ron Howard's depiction of Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) is actually very sympathetic and he actually comes across very well. Horribly misguided, but not the "bad man" you would expect to see. As the movie opens, Nixon has just resigned the White House after the Watergate scandal. On the other side of the world, David Frost (Michael Sheen), a moderately successful TV host becomes fascinated with the look on Nixon's face as he departs. What is going through his head? What is that like to step down in disgrace from the most powerful office in the world? Frost decides it would be a huge coup to get an interview with Nixon. He makes a ridiculous and controversial monetary offer to Nixon and lands the rights to the interview. Frost soon learns that actually doing the interview is much harder than he imagined. He finds no major networks willing to back him and is struggling to finance the deal he made and the actual shooting of the interview. As the interview draws near, he finds most of the media think he is a joke, getting ready to do a puff piece with Nixon which will do nothing to expose him as the criminal he is. As the interviews begin, he finds himself faced with a master as Nixon manipulates and manages to turn every question around to his benefit. As the Watergate stuff approaches, Frost's own people feel he is overmatched and fear the entire project will be a failure. Several times throughout the film, characters use boxing analogies to describe the encounters. Howard did a nice job making you feel like you were actually watching a heavyweight title bout with the unranked up and comer facing the wily veteran. Although this is a matter of historical record, so I can not really "spoil" the ending, I will still refrain from discussing the "final round" here. One of my concerns early in the film was the casting of Langella as Nixon. He is so recognizable early on that I feared it would be a distraction. Instead, you get a masterful performance as you forget pretty quickly that this is Frank Langella and believe you are watching Richard Nixon, a powerful but tortured man, who finds he has risen to the highest power in the land, but no one really likes him. Michael Sheen also does a fantastic job as David Frost, portraying the always smiling confidence while still letting you see the anguish in his eyes. Ron Howard did an excellent and fair job of portraying a pivotal time in Presidential history. Highly recommended.

Grade: A

Trailer: