Seen: August 25th, 2007
Format: Broadcast - HDNMV (HDNet-Movies)
Rating: 7
This is another of those films I should have seen a long time ago. But I'm not that interested in politics in general and political scandals and conspiracies in particular.
Even this one.
I was a kid during Watergate, and really didn't understand what was going on. And later on, I just wasn't that interested. But it did grip the nation for awhile. That there could be corruption in the federal government at such high levels, and that is could be investigated and exposed, especially by reporters, shook the nation's confidence in their leaders.
The film is solid, if a bit dry. But that's to be expected, as Watergate was essentially about accounting and paying people to perform mildly illegal acts in the service of a presidential election. The conspiracy itself is what's interesting here, not the actions of those conspirators. Goldman's screenplay focuses on the actions of the reporters to unearth the plot, which is far more interesting than the plot itself.
In that vein, it does an excellent job. Woodward and Bernstein's tale unoflds fairly slowly. The characters are full enough the we believe them and even care about them a little. This was probalby more true when the film came out, as it followed so closely on the heels of the actual incident.
Hoffman and Redford are good, even very good. Woodward is ernest. Bernstein is a bit of a creep. The one thing that bugged me is Hoffman's smoking. It's obvious that he's not a smoker. The supporting cast is generally solid, Robards in particular.
The technical details are unimpressive. The whole film comes off more made for TV than cinematic. Shots are generally uninteresting, relying on the action and dialogue to carry the scene.
While I know that this was an important film for many reasons, it doesn't impress me terribly. It's good, and solid and engaging, but not revolutionary. Perhaps is just dated. This events are thirty years old, and given what's gone on in the world since then, perhaps not as scandalous as the were at the time.
It'd be interesting to see a modern re-make of this, I'm sure it'd be much punchier and have half the heart
The Good: Dynamic teling of the conspiracy the rocked the US
The Bad: A bit dated
The Ugly: Fearing for your life
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