'Frost/Nixon' Langella brilliantly transforms into disgraced president

By Bill Goodykoontz

Say the name Nixon to most people older than 45 and all sorts of images are conjured up, most of them unpleasant: Watergate, resignation, the 18-minute gap, Cambodia, etc.

Say the name to most people younger than 45 and . . . who? President or something?

Frost/Nixon ought to change that. Not saying it will, but it should.
Ron Howard's film adaptation of Peter Morgan's play is outstanding, boasting a tremendous performance by Frank Langella as Richard M. Nixon. Somehow it turns a series of televised interviews between a disgraced former president and a lightly regarded, on-the-way-down television host into an outright thrilling drama.

A neat trick, and Howard pulls it off with aplomb.

It's all the more impressive given that Frost's interviews, which took place in 1977, three years after Nixon resigned, weren't exactly earth-shattering news - then or now. Nixon saw them as a way to rehabilitate his image but was, to some degree, exposed again by the medium that had long plagued him (the televised debates with John F. Kennedy in 1960 helped lead to his defeat). Plus - and this is certainly true in the film - Nixon wanted the money, the then-unheard-of $600,000 that Frost ponied up for the chats.

Frost, too, had an ulterior motive. Considered a lightweight (particularly by the Nixon camp), he wanted to establish legitimacy - and, as portrayed by Michael Sheen (like Langella, reprising his stage role), to reclaim a regular table at Sardi's.

The film begins with Nixon's resignation. After coming offstage from the taping of a vapid TV show in Australia, Frost catches a TV broadcast of Nixon leaving Washington and, nothing if not savvy, immediately wants to know how many people watched the resignation the night before.

So begins an odyssey, back-and-forth negotiations between Frost's people - he hires researchers, played by Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt, both good but underused - to get him up to speed on Nixon's career, though Frost shows a decided lack of interest in playing along. Nixon, meanwhile, is buoyed by loyal aide Jack Brennan (Kevin Bacon), who choreographs a performance that will allow the former president to use Frost as a stooge, basically having his say unimpeded.

Ever crafty, Nixon isn't above knocking Frost back a step with a quip or a comment just before the cameras turn on. Clearly out of his depth, Frost is steamrollered - until a fateful, drunken call inspires Frost to up his game and get to work.

Complaints have been lodged that playwright Morgan plays fast and loose with the facts. So what? Sometimes fiction is the best way to get at fact, something that is evidenced by Langella's performance. Though he's clearly worked on perfecting the awkward gait, the jowly voice, he doesn't look especially like Nixon. Yet he embodies him - his essence, the paranoid intelligence, the need for approval. It's not an impersonation, it's a transformation, and it's brilliant.

Howard keeps the pace brisk, light when it needs to be, heavy when that's called for. Along with Langella, he turns Frost/Nixon into one of the most entertaining history lessons imaginable.