Rehabilitation of the Dead

Rating: Null/10 (1 January 2009)

I am always happy to be proved wrong when I am negative. I did not believe it possible that Ron Howard could make a film that is remotely watchable, especially since he figuratively married Brian Grazer. The two together have such an insipid work view that even with potentially weighty material what they give us seems to be from a world made up on a schoolbus.
But this is very effective at what it attempts. Its a very simple dynamic, but it has significant resonance for someone my age. He manages to hold the tension all the way to the end, and that's no simple task. I think that the way he has done this is to put himself into the Frost character: a thin intellect struggling publicly with difficult ideas and complex situations. I can easily imagine that the struggles he had with trying to guide Langella into complexities.
Fortunately, Langella has already done this part  without the hulking posture  in the superior "Starting Out in the Evening." Even more luckily, the Watergate situation is one of the best stories in politics, newly reborn as the US struggles with how to handle the crimes of its 43rd president.
And more luck: the situation is inherently cinematic because its a story about a similar goal: how to reveal a complex truth for the camera.
So generally, Howard is able to keep himself focused. But there is one element where Howard/Grazer just cannot help themselves. They have to add a pretty girl who appears only for this story (she is met on the plane on his introductory trip). She them provides the domestic support that seems to be at the foundation of every Howard story.
She is pretty. I last saw her in a story about a college quiz, where she was "the appealing one." But here she is a distraction that doesn't fit, a long answer to a simple question.
Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.