What reporters really do.

Rating: Null/10 (10 March 2004)

Every now and again I see a great American movie from 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and nearly every time I say, "They'd never make it like that nowadays." Here we have yet another classic from the era when believe it or not the studio's first question wasn't "How does this appeal to the 16-34 demographic?" Nowadays movies go out of their way solely to entertain, and generally in the most mindless way possible. This movie was from an era when they often wanted to make movies "to *inform* and entertain." And in this case, their idea of entertainment was not to add needless action or sex sequences, but simply to put Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Hal Holbrook and as distinguished a set of character actors you could get playing the Washington Post staff, on the screen and just let them get on with it.
By just showing exactly what it is investigative journalists do - ie make phone call after phone call, write down what they hear and then join the dots, made this movie very fascinating and informative, even if the viewer was not able to keep up with exactly who had done what and who was being accused of committing what crime.