All the shameful things politicians do

Rating: 10/10 (13 June 2008)

June 17, 1972.Five men are arrested after breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate hotel complex.This becomes a national scandal that eventually leads to the resignation of President Richard Nixon on August 9, 1974.Two Washingon Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein do a lot of work to find all the dirt that is involved in the story.Their job was never easy because people had hard times naming names of the ones involved.Woodward was helped a little by a man they called Deep Throat.The identity of Deep Throat was kept in secret.It wasn't until 2005 when it was announced that a man named William Mark Felt Sr, Deputy Director of the FBI, then 91, was Deep Throat.Alan J.Pakula's movie is a masterpiece of political thrillers.The tension is kept on from the very first second till the end.All the President's Men (1976) is based on the book written by those two brave men, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.It was Robert Redford who made this picture possible.He saw a story that needed to be made into a movie.He was also the right man to be performing Bob Woodward.And as Carl Bernstein we get to see the brilliant Dustin Hoffman.These two men share an awful lot of chemistry together.Just like Woodward and Bernstein did.And the rest of the cast isn't any lesser.Jason Robards is very fine as the legendary managing editor of Washington Post.Jack Warden plays Harry M.Rosenfeld.Martin Balsam plays Howard Simons, the man who came up with the name "Deep Throat" for the man with classified information.Hal Holbrook plays this man of the shadows and what a fine job he does.Jane Alexander is Judy Hoback.Ned Beatty performs Martin Dardis.Stephen Collins plays Hugh Sloan.Meredith Baxter, who became known as Elyse Keaton of Family Ties during next decade, plays his wife Debbie Sloan.Robert Walden is Donald Segretti.F.Murray Abraham plays Sgt.Paul Leeper.Dominic Chianese of The Sopranos is Eugenio R.Martinez.Richard Herd is James W.McCord Jr.The legendary news anchor Walter Cronkite is heard there.He and many other people who were there spoke on the DVD features.I learned a lot from this movie.It's full of memorable scenes.One fine scene is where Bob thinks their lives are in danger and so he plays music very loud and starts typing.And when the television shows Gerald R.Ford announcing Richard Nixon for the second term while Bob and Carl are writing his doom.This is a winner of four Academy Awards.It included William Goldman for writing while Jason Robards got one for his performance.All that stuff that took place then were still pretty fresh when this movie was made.It's important for the modern viewers to watch this movie now so we know what happened.And this movie remains current today because we will always have rotten politicians, those who only think of their own interest.That's why we need movies like this, to show us how these people work.