Frost/Nixon (2008)

The obstacle, of tolerance being correct, is the acceptance of intolerance being incorrect: intolerance is violence, and violence being incorrect is violence being violence.The acceptance of violence being violence is the acceptance of violence that isn't tragic.Violence that's not tragic is violence that's good. The acceptance of violence that's good is the obstacle of non-violence that's bad.Bad non-violence is violent non-violence. Violent non-violence is the same as corrupt non-violence, or corruption that's pure.Obstacle is violence. The violence of pure corruption is the non- violence of impure purity - the purity of violent purity.The purity of violent purity is the goodness of purity that's deceptive. Deceptive purity is sinister purity. Sinister purity is evil purity.Frost/Nixon is a repulsive and sickening movie, because it's a movie that believes in the concept that reality should go out of its way to protect a false version of decency and quality

If you're going to this movie thinking you are just going to see another movie about Watergate, you will have to quickly adjust your thinking. I know, because that is what happened to me. This is a riveting and gut- wrenching movie about two men locked in a personal battle to use each other in order to change their public images. Neither is totally prepared for the contest that will be played out on the world TV stage. To be sure, this is a "no holds barred" showdown. But both Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) and David Frost (Michael Sheen who played Tony Blair in The Queen (2006) underestimate each other's public skills. To Nixon, David Frost is seen as just a second-rate British talk show host. To David Frost, the Nixon interviews are his ticket to do something that no other TV talk show host or reporter had managed to do: to get Nixon on record admitting something about himself that he had not heretofore publicly done. Frost, pushed by his fellow producers, wants Nixon to publicly take responsibility for the Watergate cover-up and for his own personal complicity in the final aspects of the Viet Nam War. As you watch this movie, you find yourself, at first, empathizing with David Frost who is in something big--but WAY over his head. Later, as you see the preparation for the interviews (on both sides), you feel empathy—yes, empathy--for Richard Nixon!! Both Oliver Stone, in Nixon (1995), and Ron Howard, in this movie, seem to have taped Richard Nixon as a figure of the high tragedy akin to a figure from a Greek tragedy or one of the "big four tragedies" of Shakespeare: Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello. In each of these Shakespearian tragedies, the title character has an innate tragic flaw in their character that brings them down from great and powerful heights. While it may have been JEALOUSY with Othello or LUST FOR POWER with Macbeth, with Nixon it seems to always be the need for REVENGE on his enemies (real or imagined): those people that look down on him as socially or intellectually unworthy to hold power. With this movie, Ron Howard has expertly introduced us to a new type of "courtroom drama." But, this "courtroom" takes the form of a series of TV interviews. The parties present their own arguments, and we are the jury. Howard effectively uses extreme close up shots to tighten the space and heighten the interpersonal drama. With his skill, Howard draws us into the drama and barely gives time to blink. Both my wife and I left the movie emotionally drained but dramatically fulfilled.

"Frost/Nixon" was a curiosity for me; for one, I wanted to see Frank Langella as Richard Nixon, and the other reason is just to see how they'd distilled so many hours of interviews into a two-hour running time. I've never seen the original footage, so I can't speak to the film's accuracy, but it makes for great Hollywood dramatization nonetheless. Ron Howard frames it as a boxing match; an inexperienced journalist facing a veteran who knows how to run rungs around his opponent. Langella comes alive when he taps into Nixon's ferocity, and the movie really gets interesting when Michael Sheen stops soft-balling and goes on the attack. If you're going into this for two great performances, it excels on that basis alone.7/10

Brilliant. Ron Howard crafts the David Frost interview of Richard Nixon into a sporting event, with punch and counter-punch, mind games, agony and ecstasy. A very well-told story, with examinations of both protagonists characters, mindsets and motives.Howard keeps the movie going, never getting mired in over-sentimentality or minor details. At no point does the plot drift.The cast is perfect for their roles: Frank Langella as Richard Nixon, Michael Sheen as David Frost, Kevin Bacon as Nixon's Chief-of-Staff Jack Brennan, Sam Rockwell as James Reston jr and Oliver Platt as Bob Zelnick. All deliver outstanding performances.A fascinating expose of one of the more notorious incidents in American history, and the interview that made a TV legend.