A dramatic retelling of the post-Watergate television interviews between British talk-show host David Frost and former president Richard Nixon in 1977, three years after the scandal that ended his presidency.
Nixon is infinitely more complex than George W. Bush, which is probably why this one slice of his life is more intriguing than "W," which covers decades.
Frost/Nixon is smart and involving, a thoroughly grown-up and carefully made drama about the real-life, on-air showdown between a lightweight TV personality and a disgraced ex-president.
You never feel like you're watching a play on film: The way Morgan has opened up the proceedings in his screenplay feels organic under the direction of Ron Howard, who has crafted his finest film yet, and one of the year's best.
Plays often lose their energy when adapted for the screen. But even on the stage, Frost/Nixon had a cinematic dynamism, and Howard has only enhanced that quality.
The magnificently-flawed former US president Richard Milhous Nixon, as embodied by Frank Langella, is a magnetic presence in Ron Howard's adaptation of Peter Morgan's stageplay.
Dave Calhoun
Time Out
January 23, 2009
The outcome isn't half as conflicted as you might imagine, though it's hard to argue that Howard brings anything new to Morgan's play.
All this makes for great entertainment on the big screen, though the real legacy of the Nixon interviews is more vexing than Morgan would have us understand.
Both leads are outstanding. Langella is especially mesmerizing as the calculating grand manipulator. It's not an impression of the former president, but a piece of his essence.
Lee Grant
San Diego Union-Tribune
October 28, 2014
It's a credit to the actor that by the end, Langella is living, it seems, in Nixon's skin.
