Review of All the President's Men (1976) by Garrett C — 18 Sep 2011

As a fan of great detective stories, this film was delightful and interesting despite the audience's knowledge of the outcome. Redford and Hoffman play Woodward and Bernstein respectively very well with snappy reporter dialog ala His Girl Friday.

The film is also very educational and useful for someone my age who had not yet been born during the time of the Watergate scandal, so many of the names are unfamiliar which makes the story more of a mystery for me than others who already know the entire history.

The scandal itself is another reason the story may be more intriguing due to it being a true story. The atmospheric scenes especially in the garage were suspenseful and well done. Despite all of these great things going to it there are some glaring flaws, most notably the run time.

For a film that has nothing that actually happens other than the conspiracy unraveling the 2 hr. 18 min mark is quite a drag. I also felt the whole thing about their lives being in danger could have been stepped up higher, but I guess keeping it minimal was purely for accuracy purposes.

In my opinion accuracy isn't always good for keeping a film suspenseful though.