Perspective from a young person who's studying Watergate

Rating: 8/10 (4 January 2014)

All the President's Men tells the story of two Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, as they try to uncover the Watergate cover up. Based on the book of the same title, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman play Woodward and Bernstein respectively. A quick warning: viewers looking for a film on the Watergate scandal should look elsewhere; this one focuses more on the reporting and role of the media, and in fact, Nixon is only seen a couple of times in stock footage. With that warning out of the way, let's get to the review!
From the very beginning, the movie demonstrates a great amount of attention to detail on behalf of the makers of the movie. Down to the smallest detail, factual accuracy was sought for in this movie, making it an entertaining yet informative view of Watergate from a journalistic perspective. For example, when Woodward calls the White House, the number he dials is actually the number to the White House switchboard. The creators went to great lengths to ensure that the newspaper set was accurate, including the people in it and the events which transpired. The film is truly an accurate look into how a newspaper is run.
In addition to attention to detail, the acting in the movie is superb. Robert Redford successfully displays different emotions convincingly, and plays the part in an entertaining way. Dustin Hoffman also plays his character well, though I enjoyed Redford's performance more. Besides the top billed actors, Jason Robards does a fine job playing Ben Bradlee, the editor of the Washington Post. Bradlee left big shoes to fill, but Robards played him convincingly, emanating the qualities which enabled Bradlee to reach his position. Jane Alexander, despite having no more than ten minutes of screen time, perfectly depicted the Bookkeeper and was in fact nominated for an Academy Award for her role. Overall, the actors blend together well and are very convincing in their roles.
Having watched this in 2013, I expected it to be somewhat dated and perhaps cheesy. However, this was not the case at all. The movie has a fast paced plot which has action at every turn. The often parodied parking garage meetings between Woodward and one informant, Deep Throat, had a tense atmosphere and wasn't at all cheesy or whimsical. Despite the fact that Watergate happened before I was born, I was still able to enjoy the plot and relate to the characters. From other reviewers' takes, I know that audiences from the 1970s also enjoyed the film. For a movie to hold up that well over time, especially a movie based on a current event, is truly a sign of greatness. Viewers from any time period, any previous depth of knowledge on Watergate, and any political affiliation will enjoy this fast paced film.
Besides all these technical reasons to bestow the four stars, there's a simple one: it's entertaining! For someone who doesn't know much about Watergate, the plot turns will be unpredictable, and a huge mistake the reporters make in the very end will catch them completely off guard. For someone like me, someone who studies Watergate and has read the book, it was fun to test my knowledge of the people, and also it helped me visualize the people that I couldn't visualize before.
Yet I did not give this film five stars, and there is a reason for this. The film only covers the first half of the book, and ends way before the reporters' role in Watergate was over. This in and of itself is not an issue, the issue is where they decided to split the book. At the end of the movie, where they split the book in two and only filmed the first half, Woodward and Bernstein make a huge mistake reporting on H. R. Haldeman, and are criticized severely. In the book, they vindicate themselves later and get to the bottom of Watergate. In the movie, after the mistake, it just shows the reporters in the newsroom with a TV showing the second Nixon inauguration, and cuts to a view of a typewriter writing out the indictments that would later come. Basically, the second half of the book, in which the reporters bounce back, is reduced to a few sentences by a typewriter announcing indictments.
But overall, I enjoyed this movie. The ending will not bother you if you haven't read the book, and if you have, it doesn't ruin the rest of the movie's greatness. Everything else about All the President's Men is superb. This film deserves four stars.