Frost's “crack team” of researchers watch in horror as their plan goes suddenly awry in the hands of a cavalier Frost. He becomes enthralled, and who wouldn't, with exotic arm candy Caroline Cushing (Rebecca Hall). The realists who make up the Frost team see early on that it is pointless to talk him down from his love nest. They ignore the tryst, but at the same time have to buoy a weary Frost as he endures many Khrushchev moments. Nixon playfully walks all over Frost just as Jack Kennedy reported about his Russian meetings with Nikita Khrushchev. How did that happen? Nixon wrestles the interview away from Frost with wild reminiscing and anecdotes that fill the time with talk and trash. He will not shut up. The audience, however, wants to know if the plan, now shot full of holes and hubris, will succeed. Nixon's strong personality creates unexpected tension threatening the interview's success.
The cast of Frost/Nixon is a wonderful ensemble that gives Frost the weight he needs with network bosses. They don’t give in nor get in the way of the story that would flatten its impact. And in any historical or documentary film that’s important.
America, David Frost and company all want to hear the truth from Nixon's own lips. Hot is hot, cold is cold and criminal is criminal and Langella's Nixon demonstrates time and again that he may never learn this moral lesson. Will America be treated to long-awaited capitulation and contrition or just the hot air of “Tricky Dick” Nixon? You be the judge. But whatever final verdict is rendered, do not miss this bad-ass film.
It is up to Ron Howard to move this two-hour biopic forward — he gets the pace just right. If practice makes perfect then Howard’s ability to keep this movie on nimble toes is evidence of that perfection. This film talks, but not aimlessly. No words, looks or theater are wasted. Nixon’s waterfall of words could have bogged the film down but Howard’s strong direction keeps apace with the intensity of the subject matter. He does not drop the drama from the first frame to the last. Ron Howard has made another great film that we want to watch and reward.
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