All the President's Men (1976)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

"All the President's Men" may be more historically inaccurate than accurate but it sure details a depth of political corruption at the time seemed unfathomable. Doesn't mean one can actually do less these days though, but when people seem to be genuinely pleased that newspapers are indeed dying, what they are essentially saying is that one of major tools to monitor the proper workings of government is no longer necessary. Thus, corruption can continue unchecked, democracy eroded even further.When I first watched this film, that's over 20 years after it's release. I had no idea about any of the details of Watergate whatsoever. I mean, I was a mare child in some classy school in London.Over 30 years before that was, Richard Nixon, impeached for spying on and sabotaging his political rivals and it all came to light because a handful of burglars got caught breaking into National Democratic Headquarters, which were located in an apartment complex known as "Watergate". The story was revealed due to a couple of reporters at the Washington Post, Woodward and Bernstein. That's it, that's all I knew. I didn't even know Woodward and Bernstein's first names. Just the bare minimum (I mean, I think ANY American should know that much, no? But I'm 150% English. With added 50% of USA and rising? that's 200% from both worlds).Here's the thing though. It doesn't matter that you don't know who Bob Haldeman was, you'll figure out enough of what's going on via context, and then the rest of the movie will work its magic on you. By the time the credits roll you'll be saying, that was so awesome, even though you still couldn't tell me what John Ehrlichmans title was at the White House. I've explained the level of complexity in the story as way of illustrating all the challenges this movie overcomes. What winds up happening isn't that the complexity overwhelms the viewer the viewer picks up on the necessary elements and enjoys the movie, while the Watergate-knowledgeable viewer winds up having a film full of details and minutiae to cherish.How do they do it? By focusing on the excitement of it. The adventure. All the President's Men is a thriller, people!! This is the greatest detective story of all time. Woodward and Bernstein were on a quest for the truth, and the truth was being protected by the most powerful people on the planet, with the full force of the government behind them!Woodward and Bernstein slowly come together as a team, and then slowly come to realise exactly what they're dealing with. Their suspicion grows. Evidence mounts.But as the story builds, so does the pressure. The stakes. Other newspapers are racing them to find the truth and to break the story first. People are trying to discredit them. At one point, their editor, Ben Bradlee (portrayed by Jason Robards, who won an Academy Award for this role) tell them, Were under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there. Nothings riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys f*ck up again, Im going to get mad. Goodnight.He wasn't exaggerating, either. Had the Nixon Whitehouse succeeded in blocking their investigation and remained in power, who knows what the consequences would have been for the press. It certainly wouldn't have boded well for the Washington Post, as Nixon most assuredly would have done everything in his power to bring them down."All the President's Men" is truer to the craft of journalism than to the art of storytelling, and that's its problem. The movie is as accurate about the processes used by investigative reporters as we have any right to expect, and yet process finally overwhelms narrative -- we're adrift in a sea of names, dates, telephone numbers, coincidences, lucky breaks, false leads, dogged footwork, denials, evasions, and sometimes even the truth. Just such thousands of details led up to Watergate and the Nixon resignation, yes, but the movie's more about the details than about their results.That's not to say the movie isn't good at accomplishing what it sets out to do. It provides the most observant study of working journalists we're ever likely to see in a feature film (Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein may at last, merciful God, replace Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns as career models). And it succeeds brilliantly in suggesting the mixture of exhilaration, paranoia, self-doubt, and courage that permeated the Washington Post as its two young reporters went after a presidency.Newspaper movies always used to play up the excitement and ignore the boredom and the waiting. This one is all about the boredom and the waiting and the tireless digging; it depends on what we already know about Watergate to provide a level of excitement. And yet, given the fact that William Goldman's screenplay is almost all dialogue, almost exclusively a series of scenes of people talking (or not talking) to each other, director Alan J. Pakula has done a remarkable job of keeping the pace taut. Does History still repeats itself?

What can I say or add to one of cinema's greatest ever films that have not already been stated here on IMDb or anywhere else in the film world? It is without a doubt one of the fascinating pieces scripts ever wrote but what makes it more mesmerizing is the fact that is all true. I think all I can add to this masterpiece is that it needs to be watched regularly to remind us of why we have performing arts.

Alan J. Pakula directed, in 1976, a film with such rich source material as the nation's first ever president to resign, Richard Nixon. All the President's Men, starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, as the two reporters for The Washington Post that uncovered the details of the Watergate break-in that spanned all the way to the White House involving the president. Reminding the audience of a time in which the printed word reigned supreme and reporters were also detectives, capable of uncovering anything, All the President's Men was a brilliantly written film, incredibly deserving of taking home Oscar's top prize for Best Original Screenplay.As the 1972 presidential election is upon the nation, there is a break-in at the Watergate. Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) begins investigating the break-in, believing there to be deeper implications behind the break-in. Inserting himself into Woodward's work on the story, fellow reporter Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) begins investigating as well. Both men are a bit on the outs with the paper, with Woodward being newer on the staff and Bernstein who rarely finishes his stories. The two are an unlikely duo for such serious work, yet begin getting answers that are impressing and surprising themselves and their colleagues. Along with the constant guidance from Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook) to "follow the money" which leads them to uncover large amounts of money being deposited into the accounts of the Watergate burglars and where that money came from exposing how high up the ladder the money trail goes. The closer they get to the truth, the more desperate the implicated parties are to squash the story, the reporter's reputations, and The Washington Post itself.I had been meaning to see All the President's Men for some time but continually avoided it due to a distaste of Dustin Hoffman's acting. I still hold out hope that I just haven't seen the right Hoffman films so I finally saw Pakula's 1976 feature. Dustin Hoffman was perfect in the seedy, underhanded role of Carl Bernstein. An added surprise was seeing Martin Balam's name rolling by on the opening credits. No matter how small his role is, he always brings great dimensions to his character. Robert Redford was also brilliantly cast as the diligent, serious reporter, Bob Woodward. In fact, Robert Redford may have been best in this role and truly missed out on any acclaim from Oscar for this role. All the President's Men, the better-acted version of the 2015 film Spotlight, has within it a recipe for a boring movie. Reporters gathering facts, typing, talking amongst themselves, and dead-ends are highlighted brilliantly against the perfect production design of the film preventing the audience from realizing the movie spans nearly two and a half hours. Alan J. Pakula also shows his directorial prowess by picking the absolute perfect place to end his film, at the inauguration of Richard Nixon's second term in office. The audience knows what's coming, we're invested in the work the reporting duo has done and are acutely aware that the seemingly perfect scene of Richard Nixon accepting office is nothing of the illusion that it seems. Closing the film with the public looking one way while the reporters are in the background of the shot, feverishly working on the story that will bring the president's misdeeds to the nation was a stroke of brilliance, sure to stay with the audience long after the film ends.

Hi everybody, in case you didn't know - this film is overrated.Scriptwriter William Goldman's name is so often bandied about or name-dropped as the par excellence of great screen writing, and this film is supposed to be an example of how creative and subversive the seventies were in film, euphemistically dubbed Hollywood's "second golden era" by movie historians, but mostly because the eighties were so disposable and crass.Goldman's writing is definitely in shape, and he has a great ear for dialogue, but there's little in this film to really engage a viewer; there's two reasons the film isn't going to impress modern audiences, and I'll outline them here:Firstly, 80% of the film details failed and attempted interviews with faces or just telephone voices around Washington leading up to the Watergate scandal, and they are just what they are - conversations, anonymous office memorandums, conversations-whilst-driving, conversations-on-peoples-doorways, conversations-outside-government- buildings. Everyone of course either has fears for their identity, lies outright or is just too vague to attribute in a proper news vehicle, and basically the sheer repetitiveness of the scenes becomes stifling, rather than growing in dramatic tension in any meaningful way.The second reason this film doesn't hold up much today is because times have changed so radically. Discovering a politicians connections, work contacts, previous relationships, investments and properties can be done by anyone, whereas back then audiences were supposed to see the film as a struggle by Bob Woodward (AKA: The Little Guy) taking on Washington . . . and . . . winning!!!My last reservation about this film is that (to it's credit) it explores both the hypocrisy and abuses of power in so-called democratic societies, but at the same time rewards the viewer with inherently bogus ideals about the power of the individual. In the 2010's, after decades of deregulation and stage-managed electoral campaigns, all of which are hired or paid off by corporate elites, its completely obvious to any thinking person that the ideals of modern democracy are a sham, and that this film is about fairy-tale wish fulfillment, not the power of investigative journalism. To clarify, on any given policy debate issue, the actual power of the citizenry to effect the outcome process is zero, regardless of their strong support, indifference, or alarm. So, in effect, this film makes theater out of the idea of greater individual liberty when no such liberties make genuine effect for our common good.As a final note, this film never really shows any significant characters outside of the white male demographic anywhere at the Washington Post, let alone anywhere operating in Washington, with a few female office assistants aside. I would call it a well written film, with a few excellent scenes featuring an anonymous source (famously nicknamed Deep Throat) and basically a lack of narrative range and of course a predestined outcome. Some things age badly, and this film definitely has, I would recommend reading the screenplay alone if Watergate is a pet interest of yours, or the so-called "political thriller" genre.