Re-lives the 1970s Frost/Nixon interviews.

Rating: Null/10 (27 April 2009)

The subject of this movie is one that is already very well-known, and one which every viewer should know the outcome, before they see it. So, it has be be done in a fresh manner, telling us what we didn't already know. Otherwise, why not just view the tapes of the original presentation?
Before I watched this movie, on DVD, I commented to my wife "How did they make this into a two hour movie?" The way they did it was to tell the back-story, of how the idea of the Frost/Nixon interviews came up in the first place, the negotiations, showing Nixon as always somewhat greedy to get a bit more pay, the efforts of Frost's team to get financial backing, the research they did, the preparation Nixon's team did to help him be general and avoid getting into a negative light.
Frank Langella is just plain masterful as Richard Nixon. He was nominated for Best Actor in this role and could have won it, but as luck would have it there were several award-caliber performances that year. Still, even though Langella doesn't look that much like Nixon we soon forgot that we were watching an actor. His performance really embodied the Nixon that I knew back in the 1960s and 1970s.
Michael Sheen, who was so good as PM Tony Blair in "The Queen" has the role her of David Frost. I was not so familiar with Frost, but Sheen does a fine job also.
Much of what we see is a fictionalized account of what lead up to the interviews, and what went on behind the scenes during the interviews, but with proper research I feel that what we see is plausible, and certainly worth a viewing.
Good movie.