It's a deceptively juicy film that runs straight for the audience while reaching for the jugular.
Frost/Nixon (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:37
Fresh:33
Rotten:4
Average Rating:7.5/10
Consensus: Frost/Nixon is weighty and eloquent; a cross between a boxing match and a ballet with Oscar worthy performances.
Australian Theatrical Release:
Dec 26, 2008 Wide
US Box Office: $18,593,156
Synopsis:
Oscar®-winning director Ron Howard brings to the screen writer Peter Morgan's (The Queen, The Last King of Scotland) electrifying battle between Richard Nixon, the disgraced president with a legacy...
Oscar®-winning director Ron Howard brings to the screen writer Peter Morgan's (The Queen, The Last King of Scotland) electrifying battle between Richard Nixon, the disgraced president with a legacy to save, and David Frost, a jet-setting television personality with a name to make, in the untold story of the historic encounter that changed both: Frost/Nixon. Reprising their roles from Morgan's stageplay are Frank Langella, who won a Tony for his portrayal of Nixon, and Michael Sheen, who fully inhabited the part of Frost onstage in London and New York.
For three years after being forced from office, Nixon remained silent. But in summer 1977, the steely, cunning former commander-in-chief agreed to sit for one all-inclusive interview to confront the questions of his time in office and the Watergate scandal that ended his presidency. Nixon surprised everyone in selecting Frost as his televised confessor, intending to easily outfox the breezy British showman and secure a place in the hearts and minds of Americans.
Likewise, Frost's team harbored doubts about their boss' ability to hold his own. But as cameras rolled, a charged battle of wits resulted. Would Nixon evade questions of his role in one of the nation's greatest disgraces? Or would Frost confound critics and bravely demand accountability from the man who'd built a career out of stonewalling? Over the course of their encounter, each man would reveal his own insecurities, ego and reserves of dignity -- ultimately setting aside posturing in a stunning display of unvarnished truth.
Frost/Nixon not only re-creates the on-air interview, but the weeks of around-the-world, behind-the-scenes maneuvering between the two men and their camps as negotiations were struck, deals were made and secrets revealed...all leading to the moment when they would sit facing one another in the court of public opinion.
Frost/Nixon is a collaboration between Imagine Entertainment and Working Title Films, with Academy Award® winners Brian Grazer and Ron Howard joining Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner as producers. Joining Langella and Sheen as the colorful real-life personalities who provide the men counsel is a formidable roster of actors including Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell, Toby Jones and Matthew Macfadyen.
--© Universal Pictures
Starring: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Rebecca Hall, Toby Jones
Starring: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Rebecca Hall, Toby Jones, Matthew MacFadyen, Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, Sam Rockwell
Director: Ron Howard
Director: Ron Howard
Screenwriter: Peter Morgan
Producer: Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Composer: Hans Zimmer
Studio: Universal Pictures
Reviews for Frost/Nixon
Political thriller Frost/Nixon is one of the best and most surprising movies of the year.
Langella and Sheen deliver striking portrayals that avoid superficial mimicry for something more satisfying
More thrilling than a boxing match with no punches spared, this riveting revisiting of a historic moment in time has a little bit of everything %u2013 humour, tension and an exposé of the most compelling ingredient of all %u2013 humanity
Stirring stuff that works thrillingly as drama, and should make Sheen a star, even if it compromises on historical insight.
It sounds like an awful night out in the cinema. But you will be amazed. In Frost/Nixon Ron Howard turns this duel between Michael Sheen’s glossy playboy and Frank Langella’s shifty ex-President into a gripping tango of egos.
I found myself disconcerted and underwhelmed by a hugely anticipated movie. It never quite escapes its stage origins, and under a glitzy surface of period stylings doesn't seem to have much to say.
Whoever would have imagined that two men facing each other in a room, with producers and minders pacing off camera, would make for such suspenseful cinema?
The result is involving, engrossing cinema -- more thrilling, in fact, than Howard’s The Da Vinci Code -- filmmaking of a type rarely seen anymore and sorely missed.
An absorbing film replete with telling moments and powerful performances.
It isn't Shakespeare, but it is drama at a level one doesn't often get in movies.
The film begins as a fascinating inside look at the TV news business and then tightens into a spellbinding thriller.
What Ron Howard gets, to a degree that's astonishing in a two-hour film, is the density and complexity, as well as the generous entertainment quotient, of Peter Morgan's screenplay.
It’s twinkle versus glower in the big-screen edition of Peter Morgan’s theatrical smackdown Frost/Nixon.
One of the virtues of Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard’s adaptation of Peter Morgan’s hit play, is that it brings the intelligence back to the forefront without dispelling the elements of menace and fraudulence that were also part of Nixon’s temperament.
Although it all pays off in a potent and revelatory final act rife with insights into the psychology and calculations of power players, the initial stretch is rather dry and prosaic.
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