( CNN ) -- A series of 30-year-old television interviews does n't sound like promising movie material . Frank Langella gives `` a heavyweight performance '' as Richard Nixon , says Tom Charity . What 's more , those who have watched all 20-plus hours of the David Frost-Richard Nixon conversations , which form the center of `` Frost/Nixon , '' recently report that they 're overwhelmingly dry and dull , with the ex-president ably stonewalling questions that were not to his liking and indulging in elaborate self-justification on those that were . Of course , that 's not what we remember . On the last day of 12 interview sessions , as had been agreed , British journalist Frost finally broached Watergate . This was always going to be the make-or-break moment . And to everyone 's astonishment , it was Nixon who broke . Those fascinatingly unexpurgated five minutes of presidential floundering in the spring of 1977 weighed more than all the hours of explication that preceded them . At last , Tricky Dick admitted misdeeds -- not illegality as such , because , he claimed , the president can not break the law . That exchange made Frost 's reputation and sealed Nixon 's public ignominy . ( Some would argue that today such a sentiment is official government policy . ) Can you build a movie on five revelatory minutes ? If you 're Peter Morgan , the answer is yes . The British playwright and screenwriter has a thing about mismatched power couples : the relationships between Tony Blair and Elizabeth II in `` The Queen '' ; a young Scottish medic and Ugandan President Idi Amin in `` The Last King of Scotland '' ; and between Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII in `` The Other Boleyn Girl , '' to name just his most recent credits . Morgan seems both awed and appalled by these power-mongers , locked in the solitary confinement that political leadership entails -- though his instinct is always to bring them down to earth , to find some common ground , however fleeting it may be . Interviews often are described as a courtship or seduction , but this one was more of a cross-examination . `` A duel , '' Nixon calls it . In a sense it 's the trial he never faced . The entire country would be his jury . Much of the movie is designed to show us how the self-appointed prosecutor was ill-equipped for the task at hand : a playboy British comedian-turned-TV chat show host Down Under , more accustomed to trading quips with the Bee Gees than grilling presidents . Frost was a lightweight -- that 's one of the reasons Nixon and his people agreed to the interview . ( There were $ 600,000 more -- a landmark in checkbook journalism that director Ron Howard does n't lose much sleep over . ) Neither actor goes for a full-on impersonation . Michael Sheen -- Tony Blair in `` The Queen '' -- actually dials down Frost 's distinctive nasal drone , but suggests how this congenial suck-up coasted on his blow-dried charm , rakish sideburns and unrealistic self-confidence . Frost may be out of his depth , but he 's not about to let it cramp his style ; he 's delighted when the ex-president admires his slip-on Italian shoes . As Nixon , Frank Langella ( like Sheen a holdover from the award-winning Broadway production ) is suitably hunched and guttural , but more patrician and less jowly , than the real McCoy . Even so , it 's a heavyweight performance . This Nixon is full of pride and fury , cerebral and rigorous but fatally hungry for exoneration , or , failing that ( though he never quite admits it ) , forgiveness . Brash and brazen in comparison with `` The Queen , '' Morgan 's script does n't stop explaining itself and talking itself up , though what it all boils down to is rather less than meets the eye . At one point , a drunken wake-up call from Nixon finally kicks Frost into doing some hard journalism , but this a figment of the screenwriter 's overly tidy creative imagination . iReport.com : Share reviews of 'Frost/Nixon ' But Morgan is rock solid when it comes to structure . It 's a compelling account , shrewdly bolstered with lively actors in both corners of the ring : Sam Rockwell , Matthew Macfadyen , Rebecca Hall and Oliver Platt in Frost 's camp ; Toby Jones and Kevin Bacon attending to the president . Jones steals his every scene as the bald germophobe and legendary agent Swifty Lazar , a neat counterpoint to his turn as Karl Rove in `` W. '' `` Frost/Nixon '' does n't have much to say about the disgraced president that Oliver Stone , for one , has n't already explored in more depth , but by the last taping , in its glib and reductionist way , it works like a charm . Or better yet , like television . Which , finally , is a compliment . `` Frost/Nixon '' runs 122 minutes and is rated R. For Entertainment Weekly 's take , click here .
` ` Frost / Nixon '' features great performances by Frank Langella , Martin Short . It is dramatization of David Frost 's 1977 interviews with ex - President Nixon . Though movie is sometimes glib , acting raises it to a high level .