"Frost/Nixon" Review

Title: Frost/Nixon
Director: Ron Howard
Staring: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Studio: Universal Pictures
Genre(s): Drama
Rated: R (For some language)


On August 9th, 1974 history was made in the political system. That was day President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) resigned, and became the first president to resign from the presidency. He was succeeded by President John Ford, who pardoned Nixon on all charges of the Watergate scandal. As if the country hadn’t lost enough faith in the government, this act of pardon insured that Nixon would never stand trial for his crimes. Once pardoned he spent his days on his retirement beach in California, writing his memoir and doing fund-raising speeches for some extra money. Yet he was unhappy, still haunted by what his image had become, and how people seemed to ignore all the good things he’d done.

As we see in Ron Howard’s new film, “Frost/Nixon,” he would get his chance to try and clear the record when a TV talk show host named David Frost (Michael Sheen) would offer him half a million dollars to do a weeks worth of sit-down interviews. Though skeptical of the host who’s had several canceled shows, Nixon felt this would be easy work. Instead it turned into the trial Nixon never got from the courts, and what viewers were treated to was a one-on-one verbal duel on camera. Not that Frost was much of a political thinker. He proposed the situation to try and save his career more then to try and bring peace to the American public. The only reason he even approached the controversial subjects was because his sponsors, a couple of radical liberals, wouldn’t sponsor the show otherwise.

It was lucky for us things went down this way, and the American public for once got a sense of the true Richard Nixon. This is the key reason this movie works so well: Because Nixon is a sympathetic human in this film. History has taught us that Nixon was a terrible man, driven by greed and power. Chances are he was, but he was also human, and that many people tend to forget. We see that in this film. He’s not a completely sympathetic character, but we see that, even at his worst, he had America’s best interests at heart. Watching Langella play Nixon is like watching a man who’s morals are eating him up on the inside. He seems to lie so hard because he knows, more then anyone else, that he was wrong.

This is just the icing on the cake though, and all that happens in the middle of the movie is also great stuff. Frost gets lots of sympathy for backing such a risky project in the first place. When networks refuse to pick it up and sponsors leave the project, Frost finds all his shows canceled and funding the interviewing sessions himself. When the interviews do start the dialog is smart, fast, and tense. This is a text-book example of how to write good dialog and make it interesting, even when there is nothing else going in the film (the movie is, what the old-timers would call, a “talkie”). Ron Howard has been making some very miss films lately. After “The Da Vinci Code” I was ready to write him off.

Now we have “Frost/Nixon,” his best movie since “A Beautiful Mind,” and my personal favorite of his behind “Apollo 13.” While the movie revels it’s stage roots it’s never boring nor does it feel contrived. I know that some of the facts are stretched with a bit, and the Watergate interview is taped on the final day in this film when it was really filmed on the third day, but these are minor problems I can live with. Only a good director, with a good screenplay, with compelling actors can make a movie like this work. And when all the above are great, you’ve got something special.

Grade: **** and a half stars