Review of All the President's Men (1976) by Ahmedaiman9999 — 02 Jun 2018

Alan J. Pakula made a very smart decision by not making this movie longer. Because I think Oliver Stone made a mistake by making the runtime of JFK three hours and nine minutes, and the director's cut even longer by 17 minutes! The result, in the case of JFK, was that the movie focused more than it should do on some subplots that really didn't add too much to the story. All the President's Men, instead, made a good use of every minute in it with its reasonable runtime. The Oscar-winner script, with all its cleverness, isn't the only powerful aspect about the movie. Alan J. Pakula directing is very entertaining. Besides building the tension, he shot many long scenes that really deserve to be of the most iconic scenes in film. The performances are all great; Redford has the most of the screen time, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had an Oscar nod. He has a particular scene in which he changed his face expressions so gracefully. Hoffman is one of my favorite actors and he gave one of his best performances in this movie; his character is so energetic and impulsive and he just got it right. But the performance that really standout is Jason Robards' performance as Ben Bradlee, the executive editor of The Washington Post. Robards, without a doubt, deserved his Oscar for best supporting actor.

At the middle of its third act, I think the movie suffered a little bit moving between two sub-plots; it moved very fast between them and I think it should have made a small breather to keep me gripped, and to make me invested in the new sub-plot from its beginning.

There were many secondary characters in this movie and they were all great, except one character that I felt it should have given some more depth because it has an important role near the end, and a background could have filled some logical gaps. With that being said, this character is very interesting and you may be interested to search about it after watching the movie.

Overall, All the President's Men can be described as a "Hitchcockian" political thriller. Its tension and suspense are unprecedented in this sub-genre. And I loved it!

(8.