Review of All the President's Men (1976) by Jay R — 17 Mar 2011

Apparently the Academy Awards decided to choose an incoherent boxer over some really great films in 1977. With Taxi Driver, Network and All The President's Men, filmmakers we're delving into the paranoid, delusional and obsessive psyche of the American people. In this case, it's two Washington Post journalists who stumble upon some serious details about the Watergate scandal. Now the problem, is getting the story out. As the story gets more full and deep, the danger becomes a bigger threat, even to their lives. All The President's Men is taut and well crafted search for the truth, even if it does mean giving up a bit of character development.

What drives the movie forward are the great performances of the two journalists. The journalists are Bob Woodward (the impeccable Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (the great Dustin Hoffman, looking as young as ever) and they happen to stumble upon a lot of unanswered questions and people who won't go on the record. This means, there is a story to be found. The Watergate cover-up is about to be blown wide open, they just don't know it yet. Redford especially becomes obsessed giving a strong, and intense performance. His crowning moment comes on a seven minute continuous shot of frantic phone calls and the jotting of notes. If there's one word absent from the journalist's dictionary, it would be "break".

All The President's Men is a great title because it emphasizes the importance of not only those close to the president, but all of the American people. The people deserve truth, and that is everything that journalism stands for. Truth. Despite being procedural in it's pace, All The President's Men is constantly engaging in the world of journalism, where paranoia begins to set in over this important story.

There is a big piece missing from All The President's Men that would have made this something more than just a taut, journalist thriller, is who these journalists are. Their ties to their paper, their relationship to each other, their families. They are never shown with families, so perhaps they do not have any close relatives. Still, you can enter a person's personal life through past events, psychological factors and nuances that make them feel like real people. Hoffman just smokes the whole time. That isn't a character, and we need to know more about the people who blew this conspiracy wide open.

But director Alan J. Pakula, who would later direct another political thriller The Pelican Brief, keeps everything in control, using both historical fact, and dramatic build up to keep a constant tension. There is always a state of urgency, this story has to be told. And those obstacles that get in the way are what motivate the characters even more.

So how can the credibility of this story be presented? No one is able to confess that they said something. And since they can't use named, this story is sketchy. And you can't run a sketchy story, no matter how important. Woodward often meets with his mysterious contact nicknamed Deep Throat (the edgy Hal Holbrook) who keeps the journalists on track. But he escaped conviction because he never actually says anything about the case. It's like a devilish game of hot and cold.

The truth is what matters here, but I wish Pakula decided to end on a poignant or thoughtful note instead of a barrage of facts. It feels like a wrap up of a story we know. It was these journalists, and their story, that we are focused on. Make them the focal point instead of the story. The story is important, but they made it public.

All The President's Men is great, I really felt that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, as the journalists did once the story finally made into papers. These men are heroes because their own country had let them down. The symbol of the American leadership had lied through his teeth. These men chose honesty and compassion in a time where there wasn't much of that anywhere.