All The President's Men Movie Review

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 12th grade February 2008

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Even thirty years after the Watergate burglaries and twenty-six years after its release, Alan Pakula's "All the President's Men" remains one of the best films ever made about the profession of journalism and its tricks. This movie is an extraordinary representation of the true account of two Washington Post reporters, Carl Bernstein, played by Dustin Hoffman, and Bob Woodward, played by Robert Redford, who helped uncover the most famous political scandal in American history, the Watergate burglaries; which brought down President Nixon.

The film opens with typewriter keys striking heavily on paper, with the date of June 1st of 1972, which is when President Nixon returned from China. Woodward and Bernstein are suspicious when two of the Watergate burglars have the phone number of Howard Hunt, a CIA consultant and White House aide. They begin investigating, and discover that more of Nixon's administrators and top aides are also involved.

They find a pattern of corruption in President Nixon's re-election campaign. Over the telephone and in person, interviews with aides and cabinet members uncover other stories. Look for the scene where Bernstein goes as far as inviting himself into Judy Hoback's [Jane Alexander] house, the bookkeeper for the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, and ends up staying for hours drinking coffee and interrogating her.

Their investigation is then helped by a unanimous source called Deep Throat, played by Hal Holbrook, who would meet Woodward in a dismal garage and never tell him anything, but only confirm things.

Ben Bradlee, the Post's executive director who is played by Jason Robards in an Oscar winning performance, prints the article, revealing involvement of everyone all the way up to President Richard Nixon with the Watergate burglaries.

Throughout the movie Nixon's administrators are never shown, but only mentioned. Although many scenes...