Great performance of Frank Langella

Rating: 9/10 (3 January 2010)

First I have to say that i'm a German and way too young to have seen the interviews, which means that I didn't had a good knowing of the historical circumstances. Nevertheless I really enjoyed the movie, which describes the interviews between British talk show-master David Frost and former US-President Richard Nixon in 1977 and the events which eventually led to these interviews.
The best part of the movie is without question Frank Langella's performance as Richard Nixon. As Nixon he is unbelievable convincing and even resembles him physically in a striking way. He really gives you a good idea how Nixon was, even if you don't know much about him. Another plus-factor is that Langella doesn't act too over the top as Nixon. He really embodies Nixon and isn't some flat caricature of him. On the other side there's Martin Sheen's Frost. Don't get me wrong Sheen delivers an excellent performance - perhaps the best of his career - but in contrast to Langella he just seems a little pale. Though considering that Nixon is a lot more powerful character to play it's quite understandable that Langella appears more convincing.
The rest of the movie is well done with a good direction by Ron Howard for whom I'm glad that he doesn't only direct stuff like The Da Vinci Code etc. The pace of the movie is well executed but a little bit too conservative in terms that Howard doesn't differ from the usual story line telling formula.
Overall it can be said that the great performance by Langella adds real excellence to an good movie.
9/10 stars