Frost/Nixon

Ron Howard delivers a highly competent film transformation of Peter Morgan's ("The Queen") Broadway play that features Michael Sheen and Frank Langella reprising their stage roles. Sheen plays the famous British celebrity talk show host David Frost working in Australia when he devises a plan to conduct a series of four interviews with former President Richard Nixon, just four months after Nixon's resignation. Assisted by a crack team of advisors, consisting of Oliver Platt as a veteran D.C. journalist and Sam Rockwell as an activist Nixon biographer, Frost leverages his own financing for the show and self-syndicates it in spite of jeers from the world of professional journalists. Additional pressure from Nixon's personal protectors (Kevin Bacon and Toby Jones) enable Nixon to effortlessly dodge any inflammatory questions during the first few interviews. But a perfect storm accumulates in the final discussion that discloses volumes of subtext about Nixon's failures and his unintended need to share them with the public. At heart is a study of two wildly ambitious men engaging in a public test of intelligence, wit, and strategy. Sheen's and Langella's pin-point precision of inner character development and range of facial expressions are the main reasons to see this well-written movie.
(Universal Pictures) Rated R for some language. 122 mins. (B+) (Four Stars)