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21.12.08 # Review # 3 CommentsOur official Frost/Nixon review. Will Ron Howard be forgiven for Da Vinci-gate?
Cast: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell, Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt
Director: Ron Howard
So many great movies came out (or will soon arrive) in 2008. And out of all the dramas hitting cinemas in the December Oscar rush, it’s hard to imagine one greater than Frost/Nixon.
If you’re like me, you were curious but dubious about a Ron Howard-directed film about two dudes talking to each other in brown retro suits. First, I’m not a real fan or Howard as a director. I loved the little-seen The Missing and of course revelled in Apollo 13 like all guys with dreams of outer space adventure. But I had a hard time overlooking Da Vinci Code and The Grinch.
Whatever qualms I had about his talent, they’ve all been dissolved by the masterful touch he shows with this film. Frost/Nixon is part biopic, part political thriller, part Rocky Balboa. Howard uses an abstract device of “interviews” with all the main characters. Sam Rockwell, Toby Jones, and Oliver Platt (among others) all give documentary-style interview “in character.” It’s unclear whether these interviews are supposed to take place within the reality of the film or serve as abstract “omniscient” commentary on the events, but either way, Howard uses them to create a sort of Ring Announcer for this verbal boxing match that is the crux of the film.
Once Frost and Nixon enter the ring, I defy any viewer, even the young, history-ignorant idiots like me, not to sit on the edge of their seat. The performances are commanding. Frank Langhella in particular absolutely commands the screen as Richard Nixon. He has the tough task of creating a real person out of such an iconic character. Nixon has such a distinctive face and speech pattern it would be so easy to simply fall into mimicry (think Jamie Foxx in the criminally overrated Ray), but Langhella absolutely OWNS every bit of dialog. He sounds enough like Nixon to help appease the purists, but breaks out of the Nixon bonds enough to create a remarkably real and empathetic monster.
Frost/Nixon is almost perfect, it really is quite a gem. It’s going to be tough for critics to choose the best of 2008 with the likes of The Dark Knight and Wall*E commanding box office, but Frost/Nixon deserves to be in the final round. It’s one of the reasons 2008 will be a landmark year for great film.
Our Rating: A
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Were the revelations in this interview really that big? I’m not convinced it had any real historical significance? (I mean the filmmakers would like us to believe…)
My dad claims it was a big deal when it happened. I guess it’s historically significant in that we have proof of exonerating America’s greatest felon. What the filmmakers are going for is that, though he wasn’t convicted (with the pardon he couldn’t be convicted), his apology helped America “heal”
On tape he apologized which was a big deal, since before hand he claimed he had nothing to apologize about. All the info around the interviews comes from Frost, who claims Nixon called him drunk the night before the final interview and spilled all his guts off the record. But there’s no proof I guess.
I see.
If I’m not mistaken the ridiculous thing about Watergate was that there wasn’t even any need to raid the Democrats’ offices, the Republicans were going to win the election comfortably anyway, and did. It was just Nixon’s paranoia. He thought everyone was out to get him.