Of course, Nixon’s adversary in this arena is David Frost, a blow-dried British television host known more for chatting up celebrities than world leaders. In a series of interviews with Frost, Nixon sees a golden opportunity to knock a few softballs out of the park and hopefully resuscitate his reputation, not to mention earn a truckload of cash. Frost, who ponies up a large amount of Nixon’s princely fee personally after his sponsors get cold feet, sees an opportunity to shake his status as a lightweight journalist. If he happens to wring a confession out of Nixon, it seems to matter more to Frost as a career benchmark than as a catharsis for the American public. It is to this end that his cohorts, the author Reston and ABC newsman Bob Zelnick (Oliver Platt) prod and push Frost to stay on Nixon, to interrupt him, and to challenge him. But like a football team establishing itself on a grueling, clock-consuming opening drive, Nixon controls the early rounds, keeping Frost on his heels and distracting him with condescending humor. “Did you do any fornicating?” Nixon pointedly asks just as the cameras begin to roll. Sheen, who early on plays Frost’s playboy journalist with the slightest hint of Austin Powers’ self-aware comedic sexuality, here wears the look of a man slapped across the face by his subject. He can’t understand why someone would do such a thing.

It’s not until a (fictional) late night phone call that the tide begins to turn. Drunk on hubris and alcohol, Nixon engages in perhaps a little too much trash talking, finally provoking Frost to get up off the mat and fight back. It’s a poignant scene, of the classic “we’re a lot alike, you and I” variety. Nixon sees something familiar in Frost, an underdog, someone from outside the moneyed elite who crashed their party, rose through their ranks, but never truly became one of them. Nevertheless, Nixon assures his opponent that victory will be inevitable, thorough, and unmerciful. “The limelight can only shine on one of us,” he reminds Frost, “and for the other, it’ll be the wilderness.”

As a late-70s period piece, Frost/Nixon is refreshingly light on cultural indicators. Frost embarks on the obligatory Eastern Airlines flight (Hollywood loves defunct airlines, don’t ask me why), and the interviews themselves take place in a modest Los Angeles home that seems to be tipping its hat to “The Brady Bunch.” Like Oliver Stone did with Nixon (1995), director Ron Howard opens with a Watergate-era news montage, where we see all of the familiar faces from that real political drama. Unlike Stone, Howard maintains a patient, deliberate pace throughout the movie. Probably because the source material is a play (which I have not seen), the dialogue dominates, and Howard respects this dominance by not distracting us from his actors’ lines (written by Peter Morgan, who wrote the play). That’s not a knock on Stone, whose movies I enjoy. It’s just a compliment to Howard, who must have been tempted to use sexier means to tell the story. Instead, he trusted Langella, Sheen, and the supporting cast to give superb performances, and I suspect Howard will be duly rewarded for his restraint, come February.