Frost/Nixon is the dramatic telling of Richard Nixon’s break from silence in the summer of 1977 to British television host David Frost. For three years after being forced from office, Nixon kept his mouth shut. He did not take interviews or come clean about his involvement in the Watergate scandal until he found somebody he felt he could outwit and be redeem himself in the eyes of the public.

This is the third major political think piece to be released to mass market this year, with Oliver Stone’s W. and Gus Van Sant’s Milk arriving shortly beforehand. The question is; what is the point?

Oliver Stone is usually a political shaker and mover, an incendiary filmmaker who will shove his opinion down the viewer’s throat regardless of, or more likely because of, how much it will piss everyone off. So the subject of George W. Bush, a man who should probably wear a helmet in his day to day activities, would seem an easy fit for a director with the audacious views that Stone holds. Why now though? Why not six or seven years ago, at the pinnacle of Bush’s idiocy? What purpose does a character study of a man who makes horrible decisions for a living (for the better part of a decade, for some reason) serve?

With the likes of Natural Born Killers, JFK, Platoon and Wall Street, Stone gave the viewer an in your face perspective of what he sees as human foibles. Our obsession with celebrities, American greed and the stupidity of war were all covered with great results. In the last few years, Stone has chosen two controversial subjects to turn into feature length moving pictures. With World Trade Center, possibly the most obvious case of media-whoring in the history of cinema, all Stone taught us was that Nicolas Cage is terrifying with a mustache.

What is the purpose of these political thrillers? Timely or untimely, they never seem to strike a chord with the viewer. The events of Frost/Nixon happened 30 years ago. Understandably, the events of the film have been presented on the stage for a few years now, but what is the purpose of bringing these events to the silver screen? Are we to correlate the events of this movie with our current commander in chief? Are we trying to say in a very roundabout way that we need some accountability, and that a certain somebody should not just be able to brush off the bombing and occupation of an innocent country? Not likely. The more likely culprit is a little golden man with an unfortunate name.

Even with Milk, it just feels like exploitation. Being released around the time of Prop 8, Gus Van Sant’s biopic felt like it should have served a higher purpose. That the martyred Harvey Milk was a political crusader who cared about the people, his people, regardless of sexual orientation, and he was murdered for it. That Proposition 8 was a terrible and inhuman idea that denied a certain group of Americans the right to pursue happiness. I’m pretty sure that was in the Constitution somewhere. Unless there was some fine print that people missed that said; “..and the pursuit of happiness…unless you’re a fag.”

These political films could be so much more. Obviously they create great dramatic roles that will potentially win awards, but it seems that these real events should be given some greater responsibility.