Frost/Nixon Review

8:22 am EST January 1st, 2009 | Movies | 4 Comments

This movie is about two dudes in a room. It shouldn’t work as a movie. The bulk of it is two men in a suburban living room sparring with each other. Boring… not! Because the two men are David Frost and Richard Nixon and as one of the characters says – this interview is the trial Nixon never had thanks to Gerald Ford’s pardon.

frank langella as richard nixonI’ve got to say that the movie is as good as everyone’s been saying. While I would like to have learned more about Michael Sheen’s David Frost (Sheen was great as Tony Blair in The Queen), he does a good communicating the mental movement of Frost from the flippant world of talk show hosting to the very serious work of presidential interviewing. And Frank Langella.

Richard Nixon is almost like a caricature of himself already. When he said “I’m not a crook”, it’s almost like a comedian doing the line. And yet, while Langella uses some of the verbal intonations of Nixon, it doesn’t come across like schtick. Nowadays most actors can’t convey emotions using words, and yet in this film Langella has the uber-level chops to convey a human change of emotion on his face that is almost haunting. It will be a shame if he doesn’t go home with a few awards this award season.

The biggest disappointment – and it is a minor one in what is one of the best movies of the year – is how under utilized Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt are as Frost’s researchers. They got some of the funniest lines but I would have liked to see more about how they worked with Frost and their personal/professional reasonings for why they stuck with the project.

But overall, a great movie, and in some way I felt it was sympathetic towards Nixon. Yet, as great as Frank Langella’s performance was its probably a testament to what he did that Nixon in the movie felt as unworthy of sympathy to me as Nixon in real life. The man trashed democracy and felt he was justified in doing so to the grave.

There is also a very important moment in the movie punctuated with a dachshund. Really.

Rating: 4.5/5

Nixonland

Frost/Nixon: The Original Watergate Interviews on DVD

Frost/Nixon 2008 on DVD

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4 Responses to “Frost/Nixon Review”

  1. C.S.Strowbridge says:
    January 1, 2009 at 10:02 am

    The film is one of the favorites to clean up when it comes to Oscar nominations. I’m not sure how many awards it will win, on the other hand.

  2. bryan says:
    January 2, 2009 at 4:59 am

    Rockwell, Platt and Langella are really great actors, as is Sheen.
    Sheen played Tony Blair against David Morrissey’s Gordon Brown in “The Deal”, which culminates in their meeting in the Granita restaurant to decide which of them should be in power first and for how long. It is also quite talky, but welll worth a watch.

  3. Duros 62 says:
    January 2, 2009 at 11:34 am

    This movie is about two dudes in a room. It shouldn’t work as a movie.

    Here’s one that didn’t work as a movie.

  4. Bruce Henry says:
    January 2, 2009 at 12:34 pm

    Another movie about two dudes in a room is IFC’s “Deranged.” Awesome suspense thriller.