All The President's Men: Film Review

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All The President’s Men, directed by Alan J. Pakula and starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, was released in 1976 as a political film based on the book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. It follows two journalists for The Washington Post in their investigation of the Watergate scandal. The film opens with the police discovering five burglars inside the Democratic National Committee located in the Watergate complex. The following morning, thinking that the story will be of little importance, The Washington Post assigns coverage of the story to a new reporter named Bob Woodward. He discovers that the five men were in possession of bugging equipment and all have ties to the CIA. The burglars are eventually connected to Howard Hunt and …show more content…
Nixon and his helpers bugged the offices of his political opponents and used the CIA, FBI, and IRS to harass activist groups and other political figures. It resulted in the resignation of Nixon from the office of President of the United States and the indictment of 69 of his top officials. The movie, All The President’s Men was based of the book written by the main characters of the film, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The two reporters did work for The Washington Post and wrote most of the original news coverage on the Watergate scandal. They published the book in 1974 and helped, somewhat, in writing the script for the movie. However, the film only details roughly the first seven months of the conspiracy, while the book spans from the DNC break-in to Nixon’s resignation in 1974. Woodward also protected the identity of the mysterious “Deep Throat” until over thirty years later when the family of former FBI Associate Director W. Mark Felt sent a claim to Vanity Fair stating that he was the informant. Woodward confirmed this and has since published a book called The Secret Man that gave details about Felt’s involvement. The film is extremely accurate in its portrayal of the book, with some minor changes. One thing …show more content…
With foreknowledge of the occurring events, all that had to be done was sit and wait for the characters to come to the conclusions that they needed. It seemed to drag on and became almost monotonous towards the end where it finally became interesting as the reporters were informed that their lives were in danger. Unfortunately, that is where the film ended and they do not show the discovery that President Nixon and his associates were behind the scandal. I think if that were included it would have made the ending more entertaining and provide for some excitement. Sadly, it concluded with only headlines to skim over the events of the next few years. Though I would have preferred to have that part of the scandal included I also realise that, if it was, then the film would have continued to an unbearable length and I would probably have fallen asleep watching it. Though the film was accurate, I found it boring and less entertaining than I had hoped. I would recommend this to another student only if they were looking for details on what happened on the journalism end of the Watergate scandal. Otherwise, I feel like the film was not as good as I had expected and I most likely will not be watching it

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