Film Reviews

Frost Nixon

• Rating:
• Director: Ron Howard
• Starring: Frank Langella
• Details: US/UK/France / 122mins (PG).

Adapted by Peter Morgan from his own play, Frost/Nixon takes us behind the cameras of the famous interview between David Frost and the former American President. In 1977 Frost was a B-rate British television personality working in Australia while Nixon was struggling with his legacy, making speeches at private functions to keep himself in the limelight. Both needed a career injection and Frost (Sheen) dreams up an idea of interviewing Nixon (Langella), who comes with a hefty fee. It was going to be a fluff piece until James Reston Jr. (Rockwell) joins Frost's team of researchers (including Oliver Platt lefty writer and Matthew Macfayden's TV producer) and is determined to back Nixon into a corner and force an apology out of him. Nixon is clever, though, and with the help of advisor Jack Brennan (Bacon) is ready for anything Frost throws at him. The three-day interview changes the lives of all concerned and becomes the stuff of legend...

Watergate still sticks in the throat of America 37 years on, but is there another reason to bring this out right now? Is Frost/Nixon really Everyone/Bush? Howard, never a director with style, takes a step back again to allow Morgan's sharp, dialogue-heavy script tell the story. The leads aren't just voice boxes for their finely tuned lines and Sheen and Langella, who honed their roles in the Tony-nominated play, don't do much wrong. Although it's hard to see Sheen as anything else but Tony Blair after his role in The Queen, he's likeable as the dippy Frost, smiling away foolishly despite knowing that he's in way above his head. It takes a while too to get used to Langella's interpretation of Nixon but once that's achieved he shines too. What is disappointing is that they couldn't give Nixon anything, however. Some may argue that it goes someway to humanising a 'monster' and it does, but only after it gets what it wants from him and that's a tad easy. Oliver Stone's flawed but interesting Nixon does a better job of getting inside the man, but then he had more to work with. A film, which (for the most part) is just two people talking, Howard and Morgan manage to pull off tension and drama in the most unlikely of places, and that makes Frost/Nixon a winner.

Review by Gavin Burke