Excellent Coverage of the Watergate Scandal

Rating: 9/10 (1 February 2015)

Based on the bestselling novel from veteran journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, "All the President's Men" was directed with absolute care by director Alan Pakula and a very intelligent script by William Goldman, this movie set standards that are almost to near impossible. Not only was this multidimensional Oscar winning film exposes the happenings of the Watergate Scandal, it also focuses on the goings on behind the scenes of newspaper writing.
What made this movie stand out above the rest was that it refrained from falsifying any kind of Hollywood clichÃ©s or overly pandering on the two leading performers who were pretty hot at the times (Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford). This is a very conventional film that succeeds in keeping it real to the point that has the feel like a documentary which adds tension to every scene that's featured. There was never any doubt that stuff like this couldn't happen because everything happened felt like it did. We could relate to them when at times our two reporters are put in a precarious situation and just can't get out of it at times. Even during their failures, we can reflect upon them as they deserve our sympathy the whole way through.
Back in the 1970's, Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) was still a relatively new criminal journalist for the Washington Post who was assigned to break into the Watergate Office Building. Veteran reporter Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) but his bravado has seen better days. Woodward was very vocal about his Republican beliefs, while Bernstein was very strong about his Democratic agenda which leads to the duo to question whether they should work together to disclose President Nixon and the Watergate Scandal. Through their political beliefs, they got along worse than two roosters in a coop.
At first Redford and Hoffman were not the first choices to play the roles of these two ace reporters, but it was Warner Brothers recommended Redford to play the part of Woodward, due to him being a hot commodity at the time. While at a New York Knicks games, Redford spotted Hoffman and recommended he'd play the role of Carl Bernstein.
Hoffman and Redford were backed up by a strong pool of supporting actors including Oscar winning performer Jason Robards as the managing editor of the Washington Post Ben Bradlee, Jack Warden as newspaper editor Harry M. Rosenfeld and Martin Balsam as the Post's managing editor Howard Simons. Hal Holbrook adds great mysticism as the shadowy figure who's the source for leaking information known only as "Deep Throat". This is quite a heavy initiative at the time since no one knew anything about this man at the time (it was later revealed to be FBI Agent Mark Felt).
The technical features and the settings add merit to this very well executed film. Cinematographer Gordon Willis creates a stressful atmosphere towards our two disgruntled reporters as they draw nearer to unravelling secrets behind the Watergate Scandal. And while production designers George Jenkins and George Gaines recreated a believable newsroom while situating it on a Warner sound-stage.
The film looks into the the revealing of E. Howard Hunt's phone number the robbers who tried to break into the Democratic National Commitee in possession of the slush funds that was under operation of the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP) that funded political sabotage and from there Woodward and Bernstein try to puzzle that link that leads to one H.R. Haldeman. We follow our reporters as they gather one tidbit of information to the next trying to get something out of their stressful investigating.
Many people who have pursued their careers in journalism must have seen this movie, but it makes you wonder, how many of those students understand the complexity of the story? Do they see the painful restless search for the truth can be a very tiring task and trying to finalize each fact, or do they only see this movie of two ace journalists who made it big by uncovering the biggest scandal in American history and became famous and successful after that? The Watergate Scandal was a primary example of a red-handed "gotcha" style of journalism that still lingers on forty years later, but Woodward and Bernstein who were famous for uncovering the Watergate Scandal aren't the kind of journalists who do that kind of work. The whole Scandal just fell into the wrong hands at the wrong time.