Frost/Nixon
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Movie Reviews of Frost/Nixon
Movie Review: Beauty and the Beast
Summary: 4 Stars
What a mightily enjoyable film.
Frank Langella renders Richard Nixon as slower, older and heftier than he really was; somewhere between a punch drunk prize fighter and a waning silverbacked gorilla, snorting and puffing at the attentions of a glad-handing young dilettante. Michael Sheen plays that glad-handing dilettante, British talk show host David Frost in truth a little unevenly: at times caricaturing his bouffant mincing drawl like an effete Austin Powers, at times a spookily accurate rendition, at times a diluted one not a million miles away from the same actor's celebrated portrayal of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
But this unevenness is I think demanded by the script which asks us to believe the same man was by turns the sort of international playboy shagadelically chatting up first class posh girls over the mid Atlantic, a superficial chancer prepared to take on any assignment including (quel horreur!) hosting an Australian chat show, an impulsive bluffer forced into a desperate fundraising measures by a rash commitment which he couldn't back up and an incisive political analyst, able finally to pull Richard Nixon limb from limb when it seemed all was intractably lost. I have a suspicion Frost wasn't really any of things, at least not to anything like the degree suggested here.
But that is what good drama requires, and in this way and in others the dramatic archetypes on which the screenplay was surely based occasionally show through. In a historical drama the screenplay writer's job is to extrude from the intractably interwoven fabric of fact a recognisable narrative when in reality one never existed. Ron Howard does this artfully but is almost too successful for his own good. The narrative prescribes a perfect "confronting the monster" trajectory, with all the phases and characters clearly articulated: henchmen, damsels, wise counsel, facilitating assistants, a call to challenge, early success, dramatic reversal and then triumph out of certain defeat.
But real life, as they say, doesn't follow the script. Now it might just be that the Nixon interviews really did play out in so dramatically perfect a fashion, but you do have to wonder how much additional fictionalising the screenplay involves. A thoroughly implausible drunken midnight conversation, in particular, had the ring of a dramatic as opposed to historical device.
That said, for the very same reason, the Frost/Nixon is extremely entertaining and has piqued my interest enough to find out some more. Special mention should go to the extremely effective secondary cast: Sam Rockwell - not that long ago Zaphod Beeblebrox - all but unrecognisable as Frost's excitable and overly-principled anti-Nixon researcher, Kevin Bacon's typically assured and unflashy portrayal of Nixon's chief of staff Jack Brennan and Toby Jones' creepy portrayal of Nixon's weirdo PR Guy, Swifty Lazar.
Well recommended.
Olly Buxton
Movie Review: I Beg Your Pardon
Summary: 4 Stars
In 1975, President Ford decided to grant Richard Milhous Nixon a full and complete pardon for crimes he may have committed in the past. He was pardoned before there was even a trial or an arrest. To Americans who wanted accountability for what he had done, this was a mockery to their sense of justice.
This is where our movie begins. David Frost is a comedian turned talk show host who has lost his program in New York, and resurrects himself in Australia. He is considered a light-weight, but he is also ambitious. He plans to interview disgraced President Richard M. Nixon, even though no major network will fund him or give him air time. Well played by Michael Sheen, he feels that this is one chance to remain in the limelight or he will sink into oblivion if the project fails.
Richard Nixon, played by Frank Langella wishes to resurrect his career and move back East, and to prominence once again. Swifty Lazar, a public relations agent, played by Toby Jones, plays the seedy, vertically-challenged hustler for the president arranging the interview for a half-million dollars. This sets the stage for both men attempting to use each other to resurrect their careers.
Each side has a team to coach the principals. Both sides know the four interviews are "do or die." Kevin Bacon as Jack Brennan coaches Dick Nixon, and Sam Rockwell as James Reston Jr., and Oliver Platt as Bob Zelnick are pushing Frost to go harder on Nixon. Reston can almost taste the justice dripping from the camera, the justice he felt he had been denied, and the research he has found for Frost that is a bombshell. And you won't find out until the fourth interview in the movie, just as it happened in real life.
The performances are intense without being overacted. Once in a while Frank Langella is allowed to demonstrate his acting range, and he stretches this one the furthest, turning in a superb performance of Nixon with his gestures, a face that grimaces with suspicion and emotion, and a voice that reminds us of Nixon. He appears a pathetic and deluded figure, who is intensely lonely and seeks vindication.
The direction by Ron Howard is excellent, but Howard never quite achieves the status of others like Frank Capra, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, or David Lean. He doesn't with this one either, which makes it a great movie to watch but not a great movie to buy. One viewing should be enough to excite or remove your curiosity about an unprecedented event in American history. (Well, he never promised us a rose garden).
I would recommend his next attempt be a look at the secrecy that permeated this last administration, an administration that did not trust the people but demanded the people trust them. Perhaps it will lead to the accountability that many Americans believe escaped the last occupant of the White House.
It should be very suspenseful.
Movie Review: Truth is stranger than fiction...
Summary: 4 Stars
A film based on a play about the real debates between David Frost and Richard Nixon. Like any play or fictionalised screenplay based on a historical event (Amadeus, the Killing Fields), careful thought needs to be given about what is fact and what is fiction. The problem is that, without a roadmap, it is impossible to know what really happened as it is depicted in the film without either a roadmap or researching the events of the documentary and watching the debates themselves. They exist on YouTube, of course, and it would be good to watch them all.
I enjoyed the movie, mostly because all of the characters were so vivid. David Frost reminded me a lot of someone I know, and watching Frank Langella play Richard Nixon because you'd find yourself wondering how similar he was and how dissimilar from Nixon he was (likewise for Anthony Hopkins playing Nixon in the Oliver Stone movie). Very interesting touches, such as the look on Frost's face when he first starts interviewing Nixon and realizes that he's WAY out of his league with the fish he's roped. Nixon's hunger to be back in the spotlight is palpable, although his greed in ringing in the big bucks is a questionable distraction that is only seen in the first parts of the film. Kevin Bacon is fantastic as Nixon's devoted Marine chief of staff, whose devotion is not entirely understandable until you watch the bonus materials (which are excellent) that include interviews with the devoted people who run the Richard Nixon Presidential library, which started life differently than other presidential libraries, mainly due to the cloud over Nixon's resignation - it was only officially set up in 2007, three years after fellow two-termer Bill Clinton's. The complexity of his character is remarkable - he eggs Frost on to become a worthy adversary, despite the fact that he was chosen for the interview mainly on the basis that he was a lightweight. The contradiction of the coexistence of his egotism with his low self-esteem is also fascinating to behold.
Some quibbles with the film - I find it odd that David Frost is described as a playboy, but we only get hints of this. I also dislike the key "drunk Nixon phone call" scene/dream sequence, which strikes me as stagy. How many people who watch this film will assume that it was based on a real event? Was it?
Movie Review: deserving of all the attention
Summary: 4 Stars
For those that were around in the early 70's, Frost/Nixon does a GREAT job detailing the events of the Nixon administration and the Watergate scandal (the latter which receives the most attention in the story-telling).
For those of you that WEREN'T around back then (like myself) you will learn a LOT about the Nixon scandal.
The flow of the story-telling can best be described like this- the first half of the movie deals with a British guy named David Frost, detailing how Frost went about getting the opportunity to interview Richard Nixon and ask the most serious questions of all during a face-to-face, sit-down interview.
The questions most Americans wanted answers to at the time is displayed accurately in the movie by Frost's character. He held absolutely *nothing* back during the interview, making Nixon extremely uncomfortable, and that's why we remember David Frost today.
The second half of the film deals with, of course, the lengthy interview segments themselves, but these interviews are NOT done in a boring way. Far from it in fact.
It's the EMOTION during these sit down interviews that truly makes the film remarkable (and deserving of all those awards it won last year). The way you, the viewer, becomes attached to every word coming out of Frost and Nixon's mouth EVEN if you don't consider yourself someone who has a serious interest in politics, is what makes the film so good.
As much attention David Frost receives is perhaps even more than the amount Nixon receives. I'm surprised the movie writers chose to focus so much on David Frost and less on Nixon.
Everything you wanted to know about the Watergate scandal is presented here, and done correctly and accurately. Not much discussion over Vietnam however, but enough to satisfy me.
Anyway, the actor who plays Nixon looks JUST like him, and acts like him as well (and GREAT job imitating Nixon's voice!) Great performances by all the characters. You don't necessarily have to follow politics hard and heavy in order to follow along to Frost/Nixon, and because of that, I recommend everyone watch it. Without giving anything away, you will see a shocking side of Richard Nixon during a few segments.
Movie Review: Interesting Piece of History
Summary: 4 Stars
I best remember David Frost for his celebrity interviews and connections to the world of entertainment. Needless to say, like most from my generation, I best remember Richard Nixon for the infamous Watergate scandal that forced his resignation. But for one brief period of four well-publicized interviews during the late 1970's, their lives blended. This I did not remember, but the movie brought out sides of each personality that even my generation could appreciate.
It's hard to believe there was a time when producers wouldn't jump at the chance to sponsor an interview of a fallen hero, especially an ex-President. Could it be that we weren't always a scandal-seeking public? Or could it be, we were less forgiving thirty years ago than we are as a nation today? In either case, David Frost had a vision that more accredited political journalists did not. He wanted to interview Nixon, syndicate the interviews, and get him to admit wrong doing.
In stubbornly pursuing what he set out to do, he not only reestablished himself in the celebrity world, he brought out the more human characteristics of Nixon. That's not to say that Nixon didn't display likable qualities on his own; in fact he was quite humorous. He was manipulative, sharp, and sarcastic - but he was funny to the point that regardless of what he said - well, he was rather likeable - in an un-Watergate-like way.
From the coming attractions, I at first I thought actor Frank Langella might have over-acted in his portrayal of Nixon, but all during my watching of the full-length film, his character came across as genuine. Michael Sheen was also good in the role of Frost, as I always remembered Frost with a silly smile on his face, which, if not portrayed as a ladies' man, might have made him appear as gay.
Whether Frost was really an innovative genius or whether he just lucked out in this case, I could not say. Nor do I know if Nixon had planned to come clean at the interview's end. What I do know is that the movie pleasantly focused on the more compelling sides of both questionable personalities without dredging into the more complex details of Watergate.