The real thing?

Rating: 6/10 (9 February 2009)

I watched this half-feature, half-docu-drama with mixed expectations. Why delve into the sordid past, unless you want to make a point about politics today?
In 1974, Richard Milhouse Nixon resigned the US presidency to avoid impeachment over his involvement in illegal wire-tapping and spying on his political opponents, namely the Watergate scandal. Déjà vu? The film doesn't omit the fact that he was pardoned fully by his successor, Gerald Ford, although the Watergate interviews make it pretty clear Nixon was guilty as hell.
Although he had been reelected by a landslide for a second term, to the liberal left "Tricky Dick" was one of the most hated figures in pre-Bush US politics, for his conduct of the Vietnam War, and his reputation of dishonesty. Having seen the real Watergate interviews, I can see why -- it's hard to find anything positive in an Ex-president who squirms and wriggles this shamelessly in his attempts to dodge a straight question. The real-life interviewee Nixon lacks any of the brooding fighting spirit of his movie counterpart. He can be adequately summed up as the "New Car Salesman of the Year", a homage Nixon earned in 1971. As this performance of this man was such an embarrassment, why resurrect and polish it for a movie? Does it bear any moral message, or is it an attempt to water down the impact of a president's "wrong-doing" by turning him into just another human being?
Judge for yourself. I found the real thing, the original interviews, a lot bolder and quite a bit more fascinating than this apparent look at the "Making of". Michael Sheen as Frost, the British interviewer, gives the impression of reenacting his "Tony Blair" role from "The Queen". Nixon, the main course of the banquet, rules the screen because Sheen doesn't have any weight to throw around. The script stays remarkably close to the wording of the real interview -- watch them side by side and decide which one is more dramatic. In this case, life wins out over fiction by a mile.