Frost/Nixon

Never has the word "sorry" been harder than when ex-President Richard Nixon was forced to apologise to the American public for the Watergate scandal.

"Tricky Dicky's" guilty plea was drawn out like a nagging tooth by none other than David Frost, subsequent presenter of TV's Through The Keyhole and a man saved from drowning by satirist Peter Cook, who later remarked it was the one act in his life that he regretted.

Well, you can accuse Sir David of many things...but his one journalistic crowning glory - when he looked more Paxman than Partridge - was his masterful 1977 interrogation of the disgraced former US premier.

The award-winning play by writer Peter Morgan (The Queen) has been adapted for the big screen by director Ron Howard with actors Michael Sheen and Frank Langella retaining their roles as Frost and Nixon.

After first meeting a lightweight Frost on a cheesy Australian talk show, we see the desperate-to-be-taken-seriously TV star sounding out John Birt (Macfadyen), a producer and the future BBC director-general, about the chances of interviewing Nixon.

It's been three years since the disgraced politician stepped down after the Watergate scandal, the wiretapping of the phones of the rival Democrat Party's campaign HQ in Washington, and he now whiles away the hours at his luxury seaside villa.

Two powerful driving forces - Nixon's desire to boost his bank balance while clawing back his credibility and Frost's desperation to be a player - bring the two together for a series of four ninety-minute interviews.

These prove to be the dramatic thrust of the movie as Frost (nervous, inexperienced but sharp) and Nixon (rehearsed, unflappable and a master of evasion) lock verbal horns, supported in the wings by their respective teams, cajoling and supplying the factual ammunition.

The two-hour plus running time zooms by as the so-called "thinking man's Rocky" plays like an intellectual boxing match with Nixon effortlessly dodging Frost's hesitant jabs and the young challenger looking like he won't last the distance.

Sheen - after his triumph as Tony Blair in The Queen - once again provides a rich characterisation rather than a mere take-off but it's Langella's movie as he delivers a complex performance, revealing the wry rogue as well as the megalomaniac who considered himself above the law.

Book yourself a ring-side seat.

Tim Evans