Rating: 4.5 Pulses

Rated R

Over two years ago, British screenwriter and dramatist Peter Morgan premiered the original “Frost/Nixon” play in London. Opening to rave reviews by the British media, the play made its way to Broadway in 2007 where it enjoyed a highly successful limited run of 137 performances. After much critical praise for writing and acting alike, the play now comes to the masses through director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, The Da Vinci Code) and his film adaptation of the play.

In 1977, English talk show host David Frost risked his career along with his personal finances to secure the exclusive first interviews with former President Richard Nixon after his resignation following the Watergate scandal. Nixon, feeling he needed an outlet to let the people see his side of the story in order to gain some sort of public acquittal, accepted the offer. What starts out as a shaky venture for the charismatic celebrity only deepens as he gets through the majority of his bought time with the former President without being able to corner him on the real issues of the scandal.

Noteworthy is the fact that both Frank Langella (Nixon) and Michael Sheen (Frost) originally portrayed the characters in the stage play. Sheen captures Frost’s fish-out-of-water dynamic and simultaneously keeps an elevating determination in the role that never lets up and ultimately vindicates his ability to outwit one of the most cunning linguists of any modern political leader. Langella, who received several awards for his stage performance, portrays Nixon with a religious-like fervor in his moments of passion and sincere self-defense through his arguments of justification.

Howard, a modern master of his craft, delivers what is easily his most technically successful film since 2001’s A Beautiful Mind. He does so by doing what he needed to do and stayed out of the way of his actors. Embracing Peter Morgan’s script and letting the explosions fly between the two leads was the only way this kind of historical docudrama could ever work as a motion picture. That said, it is no easy task to adapt a stage play into a film and maintain the same level of atmospheric intensity and audience appreciation. One of the more impressive feats is that the film ends with a level of equilibrium between the two points of view, despite Nixon’s tacit admission of guilt, and brings to light the heavy burden of how sharp the president’s double-edged sword of decision-making can be.

A shoe-in for Oscar contention, Frost/Nixon is also a must-see for an understanding of what made this David and Goliath of 1970s culture tick.