The problem with movies about fairly recent events is, I think, that you immediately head into them hyper-critical. It was the problem with Oliver Stone’s W – because we’re so familiar with the lead characters and events, it all comes across as a bit too Saturday Night Livey to be taken seriously. So it’s in this hyper-critical mindset that I launched into Frost/Nixon, and the good news is that it almost pulls the whole caper off.

 

Based around a series of famous television interviews by tabloid talk-show host David Frost (Michael Sheen) with ex-prez Richard Nixon (a tremendously convincing Frank Langella), the film fills in events leading up to and surrounding the interviews, with both parties both on- and off-screen attempting to one-up the other. Frost/Nixon started life as a play by The Queen writer Peter Morgan – and it’s this at-times annoyingly obvious theatricality that bogs down the otherwise fine dramatisation.

 

Nevertheless, the performances are strong (head-wobbling by Langella is conservative but effective) and the scenes where the story strays from historical fact are surprisingly some of the film’s strongest. - Owen