“A” Rating by Robert W. Hammerle

With all due respect to “The Visitor” and “Slumdog Millionaire,” you will not see a better film this year than Ron Howard’s “Frost/Nixon.” It is a fascinating piece of movie making, and in many ways is as historically relevant as Gus Van Sant’s “Milk.”

Who could have imagined that a gripping, tension filled drama could have been premised on a series of television interviews between a perceived lightweight British T.V. personality and a disgraced former American President? Yet without any special effects or super heroes, “Frost/Nixon” gives us an intellectual duel between two iconoclastic figures that is as magnetic as it is emotionally compelling. Truth is not only frequently stranger than fiction, in this case it is also more dramatically powerful.

For those of us who came of age during the Nixon Presidency, our relationship with the man is viscerally personal. For all of his admitted accomplishments while in office [read Robert Dallek’s wonderful “Nixion and Kissinger” (2007)], many of us despised him. And with good reason.

More than anything else, he and his pre-Rovian like henchmen devised a political strategy that was purposefully designed to get 51% of Americans to hate the remaining 49% of their fellow countrymen. Called the “Moral Majority,” he sustained support for the tragic Vietnam conflict in part by demonizing patriotic Americans who opposed it.

It was a time of “America, Love it or Leave it.” It was also a time where Nixon and his cronies were secretly conducting a criminal enterprise from the White House. The whole despicable crew, including Nixon, Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson, Liddy et al, were actively involved in a sordid series of illegal wiretaps, break-ns and payoffs that brought shame to them in particular and our Nation in general.

But despite their denials and efforts to demonize those who sought to bring them to justice, they gradually fell, one by one. Nixon became the first President to resign his office.

The entire Nation took a deep breath as Gerald Ford became President. Mercifully, our country seemed on the verge of healing its divisive wounds. All that stood in the way was for Richard Nixon to face the country that he betrayed, drop his transparent façade of innocence and admit his wrongdoing.

And then it happened. For reasons never adequately explained, Ford pardoned Nixon without demanding an admission of his personal culpability. He allowed Nixon to escape into the sunset with his pathetic protestations of personal rectitude.

Our country was left in a moral fog. Justice was denied. To add salt to the national wound, Nixon and his supporters began a campaign that continues to this day in which “Watergate” is dismissed as nothing more than a “third rate burglary.”

It is against this backdrop that “Frost/Nixon” takes place. Nixon agreed to the 1977 interviews because he needed the money (he was paid over $500,000), while David Frost and his staff saw the opportunity to finally elicit a public mea-culpa from the man rightfully remembered as “Trickie Dick.”

The script, written by Peter Morgan, is uniformly crisp and deliciously wicked. As Nixon, Frank Langella seems destined to add an Oscar nomination to the Tony he won for his performance in the Broadway play of the same name. It is a miraculous performance, particularly given the fact that he is able to embody such a coldly devious man haunted by his own guilt.

In addition, Michael Sheen is simply marvelous as the young David Frost. He is every bit as captivating as he was playing Tony Blair in the award winning “The Queen” (2006). While we know going in that Frost triumphs in the end, Sheen’s penetrating performance reminds us how close Frost came to both artistic and financial disaster.

Not to be overlooked are the supporting performances of Sam Rockwell, Matthew MacFadyen, Oliver Platt and Kevin Bacon. The first three are a treat to watch as Frost’s loyal assistants who continually prod him on to greatness. They have some memorable moments together, many of which are as surprisingly humorous as they are meaningful.

Bacon is perfect as Nixon’s loyal aide who is doing his best to protect his boss’s crumbling legacy. Both he and Langella breathe life into otherwise unsympathetic characters.

As I said earlier, I have spent most of my adult life harboring nothing but contempt for Nixon. The irony about this exemplary film is that I was left feeling sorry for him. In the end, he was crushed by the weight of his own misdeeds. He lived out his life in humiliation and disgrace, so maybe it is time for people like me to forgive. Rest in peace, Richard Nixon.