Frost/Nixon has to have one of the more interesting pedigrees of any film in recent years:  televised interviews about historical events, dramatized into an award-winning play, which was then adapted into an Academy-Award-nominated movie.  And yet the resultant motion picture remains as gripping as the original interviews must have been when first broadcast (alas, I was too young at the time to remember them).

Frost/Nixon is as much about the lead up to and circumstances surrounding the famous David Frost interviews of Richard Nixon as the interviews themselves.  The film injects verbal sparring with a tension more reminiscent of a political thriller-which, of course, isn’t that far from the case, considering the interviews’ subject matter.  Considering how many dialogue-driven character dramas these days fall completely flat, it’s a joy to see one that is truly enthralling.