Sunday, December 14, 2008
A+E, Movies, Reviews

‘Frost/Nixon’ a riveting talking-head drama

You know Alfred Hitchcock is dead when the year’s most suspenseful screen scene is a reenactment of the television interview

You know Alfred Hitchcock is dead when the year’s most suspenseful screen scene is a reenactment of the television interview of an ex-president by a lightweight talk-show host.

After Watergate and Richard Nixon’s (Frank Langella) resignation—without confession or apology—Englishman David Frost (Michael Sheen) proposes to pay him for an interview. Nixon agrees, knowing it won’t be as easy as his agent thinks. He tells Frost their four 90-minute conversations will be “a duel, and I like that. No holds barred.”

Frost should take that as a warning, but doesn’t. The Nixon interview is meant to salvage what’s left of his career.

On Frost’s team, James Reston (Sam Rockwell), a passionate liberal, is determined to bring closure to the Nixon presidency by giving him “the trial he never had” (having been pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford) and the American people the confession and apology they deserve.

The networks refuse to engage in “checkbook journalism” and major sponsors want nothing to do with the project, so Frost has to come up with much of the $2 million budget from his own pocket.

When the cameras start rolling in March 1977, Nixon takes charge immediately, rambling, dodging questions and pitching for sympathy, and maintains control until Frost breaks through in the final interview, asking if Nixon believes the President is above the law. The rest is history—as well as riveting cinema.
 
Peter Morgan adapted “Frost/Nixon” from his own play, which won Langella a Tony. Ron Howard’s direction isn’t terribly creative, but it’s certainly effective. Like Anthony Hopkins in Oliver Stone’s “Nixon,” Langella creates his own private Nixon, overwhelming, nearly obliterating Sheen’s Frost. 3 STARS—Steve Warren