by Ted Sherman

Created on: December 25, 2008   Last Updated: January 06, 2009

The best screen drama of 2008 is "Frost/Nixon", already a the Golden Globe and Oscar contender. When I heard about its subject matter, I was reluctant at first to see the film. I lived through the Nixon years, and had mixed feelings about his degree of guilt in the Watergate scandal.

When David Frost's famous interview tore the already paranoid Nixon into shreds, I could only feel pity for the broken figure who once was the most important man in America. The movie not only gave a fantastically intelligent treatment of the event and all the drama leading up to it, but it also showed how both the disgraced man and his inquisitor were.

I believe Oscar-winner Ron Howard, the former child and teen star, has emerged as one of the most talented directors in film history, rivalling Capra, DeMille, Houston and other greats. In this film, Howard could have made Nixon a totally-dark villain, but instead he revealed the humanity of a blustering failure beset by a mixture of vanity, denial and regret.

Director Howard's work was matched by the fine, incisive acting of Hollywood veteran Frank Langella as Nixon. When he first came on the screen, I was disappointed because all I could see was actor Langella attempting to gesture and speak like the familiar snarling, barking Nixon. However, as the story progressed, either Langella relaxed in his role and stopped trying to ape Nixon, or I quickly lost my mistaken first opinion. Langella brought forth a totally believable Nixon. The stage version of "Frost/Nixon" played to sold-out audiences in London and New York, and Langella won a well-deserved Tony Award for his brilliant portrayal.

The two British stars of the movie were Michael Sheen onscreen as Frost, and offscreen writer Peter Morgan. Morgan sharpened his biographical skills just a year or two ago by writing the excellent movie about Elizabeth II, "The Queen", starring Helen Mirren, and "The Last King of Scotland", earning Forrest Whitacre an Oscar for his portrayal of brutal African dictator Idi Amin. Not incidentally, actor Sheen (Frost) expertly portrayed then-Prime Minister Tony Blair in "The Queen."

The story's first half deals with the uncertain journey of getting to the interview. David Frost, then a minor game show MC, had a difficult time in 1977, three years after Nixon's dramatic resignation, selling both himself as a serious interviewer, and the idea of sitting down with the increasingly troubled Nixon. Therefore, the film deals mostly with Frost's desperate pitches to the network and to Nixon himself.

The critical center of the movie is the opposite needs of the two men about the interview. Frost wants to make a big name for himself and rise higher in the TV firmament in both America and England. Nixon, after raving about how everyone was plotting against him, finally shows his true character by wheedling a large sum of money out of the network for his TV appearance. In these scenes, Langella shows his acting genius by portraying a greatly flawed, greedy man who cannot deny he has betrayed both his nation and himself.

The interview itself, although a relatively small part of the entire story, stands alone, and is as effective as the Captain Queeg testimony in "The Caine Mutiny", as well as Jack Nicholson's martinet Marine colonel's tirade in "A Few Good Men".

In the film, Sheen/Frost shows his cutting ability to induce the unsuspecting Nixon to expose his weaknesses, arrogance and, as it became obvious, paranoia. The result is the best movie of 2008, and probably one of the finest of the past decade. You can certainly expect to see many of those involved in "Frost/Nixon" climbing up on stage on Oscar night. And whatever honors they get for their efforts, they are certainly well deserved.

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