Frost/Nixon

Adapted by Peter Morgan from his own 2006 play, Frost/Nixon dramatizes the origin and accomplishment of the now-forgotten but then-momentous 1977 TV interviews—spanning six broadcast hours in total—between British talk-show host David Frost and a post-Watergate but still very tricky Dick, dueling for the public perception of legitimacy. Michael Sheen and Frank Langella reprise their roles from the award-laden stage version, and so it should be; the casting is definitive. Still, the movie has something of a so-what factor, like an exercise—albeit a compelling one—mostly for its own sake. Good thing that doesn’t much bother director Ron Howard, who grew up on television and accordingly seems more interested in its cultural influence than in the painful legacy of presidential misconduct.