"It leads everywhere."

Rating: 8/10 (13 February 2005)

The downfall of Richard Nixon has always been incredibly interesting, at least to me it has been. What lead to Watergate? Was Nixon so insecure about his own standing in the country that he had to find out what the Democrats were doing? Who knew what, and when did they know it? What were really on those tapes? I could go on, but no movie about the end of the Nixon Presidency answered, and raised more questions, then All The President's Men. Starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman as Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, respectively, the two men credited as breaking the Watergate scandal to the masses. What starts as a blurb on the newswire about a break-in at the Democrat's national headquarters in the Washington's Watergate Hotel, the film retells the investigation, based on the book by the same name by Woodward and Bernstein. Jason Robards plays Ben Bradley, editor of the Washington Post who gives direction and discretion to the story that could end a presidency. The magnitude of what the journalists reported comes across, we feel the pressure for them to get it right. If they are wrong, innocent people could lose in the court of public opinion, and their journalistic careers are over. Though told from the point of view of Woodward and Bernstein, the film is fair to all sides, the errors are retold as well as the successes. The film also brings the world the mythical creature known as "Deep Throat," an anonymous figure who waits in the dark for the plucky reporters to come and ask him what he knows. To this day, the true identity of the inside man (or woman??) has yet to be revealed. The movie does end on an awkward note however, but perhaps the right note. The film is about the newspaper reporters, and when their job is over, so is the movie. We do not see the Congressional hearings about the White House, we just see a print out of the events that occurred after the movie. It is a bit sudden for some, but since the news investigation is over, Woodward and Bernstein's role in Watergate is over as well. You won't learn much about the personal paranoia that engulfed Nixon, for that, I suggest you check out Oliver Stone's lengthy bio-pic "Nixon," but you will learn how the walls closed in on Nixon and his lies, lead by the press, specifically the Washington Post. All the President's Men show how wide in scope the government cover-up was regarding Watergate, and how 2 men asking the right questions, and with a little help from a mysterious man in a dark parking garage, can help set in motion the events to bring down an American President.