Saturday, December 13, 2008

Frost/Nixon

This is a part of USA history or Nixon history I do not know about. I was not alive then and most of my reading has been around World War II or other periods of time.

The only recognizable name in this movie is Kevin Bacon who plays Richard Nixon's right hand man. Frank Langella does an outstanding position as Richard Nixon.

Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt star in this movie as researchers and guides for Michael Sheen who plays David Frost. They are liberals who loath Nixon and want to pound him in the dust. They are jealous that Nixon never faced trial for Watergate and Vietnam and everything else the goofball hippies could conjure up. I am not down playing Watergate, it was a fiasco and Nixon was replaced by Gerald R. Ford. Nixon did suffer but he was pardoned by Ford so he never faced trial. This apparently infuriated the left. Kind of like Clinton being impeached in the 1997 I believe but never facing trial or being convicted. Nevertheless, his last 2 years in office was even more of a circus than the other six.

Frost pays for a series of interviews with Nixon. This is the plot of the movie. He wants to hammer Nixon for crimes the left feels he committed. Vietnam, Cambodia, and what not. But Nixon tosses this back into Frost's face and appears presidential and completely in control. This upsets the left who Frost seems to represent. His researchers are upset that Frost can not corner Nixon and pin any of his past mistakes to the wall. Nixon explains himself well and does not get flustered with Frost's attempts to get Nixon to admit his foreign policy was a mistake and travesty.

Nixon does admit his scandalous mistakes regarding Watergate. He knows that he affected many young people who made have wanted to committ themselves to public office but could be turned off because of its pitfalls and seemingly level of corruption.

This pales in the soft interviews Bill Clinton has done with Leno and Letterman. I do not think Larry King is credible and is a out of touch liberal, so any interview he does with a Democrat is filled with a bunch of softball questions that a 10 year old could handle. Ofcourse Clinton has the moral capacity of a 10 year old.

This movie is not really funny, more historical. Frost's wife is a looker, looks like Anne Hathway, played by Rebecca Hall. I would allocate this film two starts. **

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