Interesting and also a fairly important part of American History

Rating: 7/10 (5 April 2015)

All The President's Men is a film adaptation of the true story of The Watergate Scandal that took place in the early 70's. It begins with a break-in at the Democratic Party's National Headquarters which Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) and Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) are assigned to investigate. However, this proves to be far from any run of the mill report and their findings eventually lead them all the way up to The White House.
As mentioned, this is an adaptation of a book which was written by Bernstein and Woodward and the screenplay has been adapted by William Goldman. I myself was born after The Watergate Scandal so I don't have first-hand knowledge of the event. I also haven't read the book so my comments can only be confined to this film and Goldman's screenplay and for me I found it worked really well.
Following the break-in, the investigation begins pretty much straight away and what I really liked about this film is that it pretty much sticks with Bernstein & Woodward's investigation from start to finish - there were no silly sub-plots and the film never seemed to have any pointless deviations. The clever part about this film is not how it ends (anyone who lived during the scandal or who has read the plot summary will know how it ends), but in how it's unravelled. I must say that I found it all very interesting and enjoyed the way that Bernstein and Woodward piece everything together. I also quite like the fact that the film included stock-footage during the actual Watergate Scandal. The plot unravels itself at a slow pace, but it's never boring and therefore if you're a patient viewer then there is certainly a lot to enjoy here. Another selling point in this film is that you have two great actors such as Hoffman & Redford in the lead roles and both actors play off each other and work really well together.
All The President's Men isn't the most exciting film ever made and it's unlikely to have you on the edge of your seat. However, it is an historically important film depicting real life events and is also a very interesting film which I found to be thoroughly enjoyable. The only real negative I could find with this film is that it's perhaps a little too long at nearly 140 minutes. If you're interested in American History then this is well worth a look. Although casual viewers should enjoy this too.