Excellent duel of real characters and great performances

Rating: 10/10 (1 February 2011)

Nixon might had lied countless times but this film doesn't, except for some artistic license or other that is necessary to make the story more spicy or to fill a drama and tension that might have never existed during the famous Frost/Nixon interview.
Ron Howard directs "Frost/Nixon" a thrilling story with the behind the scenes of one of the most famous broadcasts ever presented in television, and that is the meeting between Former President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) and English TV host David Frost (Michael Sheen) after the President's impeachment. This meeting will be just like a long awaited boxing match between two heavyweights and it will take all of their power, intelligence and courage to make of this event something memorable and it will be memorable. Behind these two fearless men there's a great team assisting, played by Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell, Matthew McFayden, Rebecca Hall, Oliver Platt and Toby Jones.
Transforming a play of success into a film is a very difficult job but writer Peter Morgan adapted it perfectly, with wonderful dialogs exchange between Sheen and Langella and all the actors, balancing drama, comedy, heated discussions, and of course, using quotes of the real interview, one of the most successful events ever presented on TV, very historical.
Allied with a magnificent screenplay there's a highest quality of the performances. Langella might sound and look like a Nixon caricature but he manages to portray the President in his emotional and darker sides, a figure that needs to be doing something useful other than just be a retired politician, always in the arena even if that arena is a TV show where he might get trapped with his demons, face to face with the American public. Sheen makes of his Frost a entertaining man who gives a leap into a whole new field (a serious interview with a former president) where he needs to find a way to survive or win what could be the battle for his career, his reputation, but more than that he wants to be a star in America making the interview of the Century. Two men without their masks in front of a whole audience trying to win a battle where the winners are us the viewers delighted with such incredible moments. The supporting cast is top-notch and is amazing to see all of them together in such a brilliant project.
Explosive in its content, thrilling in its presentations without losing the rhythm and the movement, "Frost/Nixon" comes as one of the most absorbing films ever made. It was everything I expected and more! Brilliant! 10/10