Frost/Nixon

A dramatization of the events surrounding British Television personality David Frost’s (Michael Sheen) 1977 interview with disgraced former-president Richard Nixon (Frank Langella).

Frost/Nixon is an extremely well acted account of the events surrounding David Frost’s famed interviews with Richard Nixon in 1977. Both Michael Sheen and Frank Langella do wonders with their roles, both opting for true performances rather than simple impersonations that take you deep inside their respective characters and almost make the film worthy of a look.

But, as with any dramatization of a true event, there’s the nagging problem that you know what’s going to happen. The film tries so hard to generate tension and doubt in the viewer’s mind. Will Nixon run roughshod over the politically inexperienced Frost? Will the production costs bankrupt Frost? Will his career be ruined? But you know the answer to all these questions before the first frame hits the screen.

Compounding matters, director Ron Howard intersperses the narrative with various talking heads, documentary style, whose sole purpose seems to be to tell us things that the film is already showing us. It’s an annoying waste of time that highlights Howard’s reluctance to trust his audience.

That said, Frost/Nixon isn’t a bad film so much as a boring one. Lacking both the tension of a good drama and the rigid factual adherence of a documentary, all that remains are the performances, which, while insightful, aren’t quite enough to sustain the film’s 122-minute running time.