In the summer of 1977, having kept silent since his resignation three years earlier, Richard Nixon sat down for a series of interviews with British TV showman David Frost. President Nixon was planning to use the encounter as a way to win back the hearts and minds of his former electorate.
He got rather more than he bargained for. Frost’s fiery performance during these encounters has produced a series of YouTube classics and has been immortalised as a play by Stephen Morgan (the writer behind The Queen, The Deal, The Last King of Scotland).
Ron Howard’s film adaptation of Mr. Morgan’s script works very hard to make a movie out of this TV head to head. If anything, it works too hard. Did we really need all these supporting characters? Did we really need Rebecca Hall playing the cinematic equivalent of a ‘70s game show dolly bird draped across a caravan you didn’t win?
For similar reasons, in Frost/Nixon, the confrontation is downplayed in favour of preparation. Fair enough. Who wouldn’t want to see Kevin Bacon playing a former marine and Nixon advisor? Or Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt as cynical political hacks in the Frost camp? Trouble is, this translates as too much back story, too many back rooms and not enough of the main event.
It does not help that Michael Sheen keeps lapsing into a Tony Blair impersonation. Nor that Frank Langella, though impressive, looks and sounds absolutely nothing like Nixon.
To be fair, there is plenty of compelling history here and there’s certainly enough drama to justify the admission price. But a riveting subject made into a perfectly decent