Frost Nixon

To see the film version of Frost Nixon, where Frank Langella gives an outstanding performance as Richard Nixon, as he goes head to head with Michael Sheen's David Frost for the 1977 interviews that made Frost's reputation as a result of his wresting as near to an admission to guilt for Watergate from the disgraced former president as anyone has ever managed.

I hadn't seen the stage version. But the film does a good job building tension in the lead up to the crucial admission, though there is a certain dramatic licence in presenting the young Frost as a naive talkshow host initially out of his depth. Sheen is less convincing as Frost than Langella as Nixon, though I find his Blair unconvincing too, while Matthew MacFadyen convinces as John Birt and Kevin Bacon does a good job as Nixon's minder. Overall, this is a great cast delivering as compelling a two hours of political theatre as you are likely to see on the screen this year.