Fascinating and dramatic portrayal of Watergate uncovering

Rating: 9/10 (19 March 2006)

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman give brilliant performances in portraying, respectively, Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, in their investigation of the apparently minor burglary of the Watergate Hotel's Democratic National Headquarters office, which ultimately resulted in the resignation of President Nixon. This movie also features an excellent supporting cast.
The viewer gets an amazing sense of the journalistic story's progression and its implications, from the initial covering of the Watergate burglary, through all the various leads that point a trail up through high ranking Republican Party officials, and finally right into the White house itself. Particularly interesting is the interaction between the two reporters hot on the trail, and the cautious Post editors who insist that they have at least two independent corroborating sources before publishing the facts. (Pity the modern press at times doesn't take such efforts to ensure the reliability of stories they are exposing.)
This insistence of course led to that enigmatic and mysterious figure known as Deep Throat, a high government official of unknown identity, who held clandestine meetings with Woodward in parking garages. These meetings, most viewers would agree, make for some of the most dramatic and chilling scenes in the movie. For years there was of course speculation as to the identity of Deep Throat (portrayed here by Hal Holbrook), recently unmasked as Mark Felt, the FBI's number two man during that era.
This is a magnificent movie that dramatically recreates for the viewer actual historical events, as seen from the perspective of the two reporters who uncovered the story. Hoffman and Redford are masterful in portraying the journalists' roles, their very disparate personalities, and the relationship (at first competitive, later cooperative) between the two reporters. It might tend to give the average viewer a bit more understanding of the aggressive methods employed by, and sometimes actually required of, journalists in obtaining their story.
Although everyone knows the story's ending, this fantastic movie, nevertheless, still manages to be a bit of a thriller.