All The President's Men

A

I first became aware of All The President's Men just prior to watching JFK on video when I was 13. Already excited about the Oliver Stone's political thriller, I was given a double treat. I realized that I can expect to find at least one more thought-provoking, well-made movie. It took me a couple more years to get my hands on All The President's Men, but it was worth the wait.

The then-rookie reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to the Washington Post was assigned to do a piece on the break-in at the Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate Building. Expecting to find a bad burglary, they found out that things might not as simple as they seem. Revelations upon revelations led to a trail of money and cover-ups that implicate "the entire intelligence community", the Republican Committee to Re-elect the President, and ultimately the White House. The story of underdogs against a power-hungry administration, with the whole country against them; and how they ultimately drove U.S. President Nixon from office.

One part lesson in politics, one part journalism drama, one part thriller and two parts exciting detective story, All The President's Men is a collage of many things that mesh perfectly into a whole satisfying movie. This was director Alan J. Pakula at his best. Telling a story as complicated as this needs much skill and alot of dexterity. A less able movie-maker would have easily fell into the many pit-falls that follow such a complicated piece. Compared the JFK (I always link the 2 movies together), All The President's Men is less showy and made-up. Pakula avoids over-the-top cinematic flourishes. Hence, when Oliver Stone romanticised, Pakula brought us down right into the sweats of the investigation. Of the two, I believe Pakula's call was better; unfortunately he's never been able to rise above mediocrity ever since, with his last work 1998's The Pelican Brief.

All The President's Men brought home a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Jason Robards as Washington Post's executive editor Ben Bradlee and a Supporting Actress nomination for Jane Alexander (for an easy 20-minute performance). That's a testimony that even with a plot-based movie, characters are still important. And Pakula and screen-writer William Golding managed to create a balance between the drama between characters and the driving of the plot. We are offered glimpses of Woodward and Bernstein as persons rather than just our alter-egos in this story. Some of the best scenes in the movie happened in the Post's boardroom when the editors and reporters make their cases against and for the story, facing their fears of losing their jobs while relishing in the feeding of their journalistic "hunger".

All The President's Men is not the best of it's genre, it is a tad too long and at times the pace slows to a crawl. However, it is still a hell of a movie and one that deserves to be watched. It's movies like this that makes me feel that there's still some brains in Hollywood, and hopefully they die-hard.
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