a time when 'Investigative Journalism' wasn't an oxymoron

Rating: 10/10 (3 November 2010)

At the time it was made some people might have scoffed at the idea of a star studded Hollywood dramatization of the events following the Watergate break-in only four years earlier, but the finished film is both an intelligent thriller and a superb evocation of the corruption at the heart of our nation's capitol. The outcome of the story is of course no mystery, but director Alan J. Pakula and writer William Goldman cleverly used this to their advantage. All the familiar villains are kept off-screen (except for TV images and voices over the phone) as the growing scandal is gradually revealed by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, building layer upon layer of deceit and paranoia following what first appears to be a routine investigation of an unsuccessful burglary. From the often confusing chronology and characters the filmmakers were able, without altering the facts, to extract a coherent, swiftly plotted drama, in the process creating a modern political Film Noir that works better than most fictitious examples of the genre.