All The President’s Men

UK Release Date. 29 April 1976
Certification. AA
Running Time. 2 hours 18 mins
Director. Alan J. Pakula
Cast. Jane Alexander, Martin Balsam, Meredith Baxter, Ned Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Hal Holbrook, Robert Redford, Jason Robards, Jack Warden.
Rating. 74%

Review.

With a total of eight Academy Award nominations, Alan J. Pakula's All The President's Men can justifiably claim to be the greatest film about journalism in the 20th century. It certainly provides the most observant study of investigative reporters in the 1960s, in a time before the internet and 24-hour news. In its portrayal of journalism, back in the day, All The President’s Men is near flawless. Yet, the depiction of the process ultimately overwhelms the narrative - as the audience is set adrift in a sea of names, dates, telephone numbers, coincidences, lucky breaks, false leads, denials, evasions, and sometimes even the truth. 

When Washington Post journalists, Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), investigate a break-in at the Democratic Party Headquarters, they chance upon the biggest story in US journalism at that time. What initially appears as an apparently inconsequential break-in, almost incredulously at times, finally leads all the way to the White House - the Watergate Scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon. Yet, the film is more about the process than about the results, as Woodward and Bernstein frantically scrabble to unravel the mystery and comprehend the significance of the Watergate burglary.

Given the fact that William Goldman’s screenplay is almost all dialogue, and almost exclusively a series of scenes of people talking (or not talking) to each other, Pakula has done a remarkable job of keeping the pace taut. All The President’s Men might have an ending that the whole world knows, but the director still manages to generate an indisputable sense of tension. Redford and Hoffman are impressive, essentially feeding off each other. But it is Jason Robards, as the charismatic Washington Post Editor, Ben Bradley, who stands out despite minimal screen time.

All of those elements in All The President’s Men are to be commended, and yet the film doesn’t quite add up to a satisfying viewing experience. The film is unnecessarily long, and dry, and the details of the investigation, while painfully recreated, easily wash over you. All The President’s Men is truer to the craft of journalism than to the art of storytelling, and that’s my main criticism of the film.

Nonetheless, All The President’s Men is a classic that stands the test of time. Thought-provoking, deliberate and powerful.