To me, this movie is perfection.

Pretty Good

Don't Believe the Hype

Absolutely Fantastic

Alan J. Pakula made a very smart decision by not making this movie longer. Because I think Oliver Stone made a mistake by making the runtime of JFK three hours and nine minutes, and the director's cut even longer by 17 minutes! The result, in the case of JFK, was that the movie focused more than it should do on some subplots that really didn't add too much to the story. All the President's Men, instead, made a good use of every minute in it with its reasonable runtime. All the President's Men can be described as a "Hitchcockian" political thriller. Its tension and suspense are unprecedented in this sub-genre. The Oscar-winner script, with all its cleverness, isn't the only powerful aspect about the movie. Alan J. Pakula directing is very entertaining. Besides building the tension, he shot many long scenes that really deserve to be of the most iconic scenes in film. The performances are all great; Redford has the most of the screen time, and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had an Oscar nod. He has a particular scene in which he changed his face expressions so gracefully. Hoffman is one of my favorite actors and he gave one of his best performances in this movie; his character is so energetic and impulsive and he just got it right. But the performance that really standout is Jason Robards' performance as Ben Bradlee, the executive editor of The Washington Post. Robards, without a doubt, deserved his Oscar for best supporting actor.At the middle of its third act, I think the movie suffered a little bit moving between two sub-plots; it moved very fast between them and I think it should have made a small breather to keep me gripped, and to make me invested in the new sub-plot from its beginning.There were many secondary characters in this movie and they were all great, except one character that I felt it should have given some more depth because it has an important role near the end, and a background could have filled some logical gaps. With that being said, this character is very interesting and you may be interested to search about it after watching the movie.(8.5/10)

In today's world, "All the President's Men" is as timely as ever. And it's a great look at the importance of journalistic integrity at a time when it was important to be right, not first.A meticulously made film, and Redford and Hoffman were at the heights of their careers and both so adorable! The cast was perfect, with Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat, Jason Robards as Ben Bradlee, Jack Warden - all brilliant.The break-in, as we see, was a mess. In preparation for the break-in, someone had gone around the Democratic headquarters and put tape on all the doors so they wouldn't lock automatically. One of the first things you see is a guard finding one of the taped doors - that was the actual guard, and he was considered the hero of the night. One of the Republican plans was that during the convention, a yacht with prostitutes would be nearby; the Republicans would lure delegates onto the yacht and then blackmail them later. The interesting thing is how all of the people involved had no problem committing actual felonies - blackmail, embezzling, perjury, and one of the most powerful moments in the documentary is the TAPE of Nixon saying he knew where he could get a million in cash to pay people off. It was all like something out of The Sopranos, with John Mitchell threatening to put Katherine Graham's tit in a wringer if anything was published about him. Astonishing. And this was The White House.Woodward and Bernstein were like dogs with a bone, beautifully shown here as they continually pursue a story originally thought of as a waste, later called a witch hunt, and finally above-the-title news.I'm older now, obviously, than when Nixon resigned. It was hard for me to see him as a person then. Later on, transcribing his speeches and an interview - I realized that he was an amazing speaker, and his career had been absolutely brilliant. I pity him that he felt he had to do what he did. And then I remember his comments about Jews and artists on those tapes. A very complicated man who let his dark side take over.The film doesn't dwell on that, but on what Redford wanted - the mechanics of the investigation itself, the grunt work that went into getting the story.Some trivia: After this film, there was a large increase in the number of applicants to journalism schools. I'd like to point out that this took place after the movie - not the book.

"All the President's Men" may be more historically inaccurate than accurate but it sure details a depth of political corruption at the time seemed unfathomable. Doesn't mean one can actually do less these days though, but when people seem to be genuinely pleased that newspapers are indeed dying, what they are essentially saying is that one of major tools to monitor the proper workings of government is no longer necessary. Thus, corruption can continue unchecked, democracy eroded even further.When I first watched this film, that's over 20 years after it's release. I had no idea about any of the details of Watergate whatsoever. I mean, I was a mare child in some classy school in London.Over 30 years before that was, Richard Nixon, impeached for spying on and sabotaging his political rivals and it all came to light because a handful of burglars got caught breaking into National Democratic Headquarters, which were located in an apartment complex known as "Watergate". The story was revealed due to a couple of reporters at the Washington Post, Woodward and Bernstein. That's it, that's all I knew. I didn't even know Woodward and Bernstein's first names. Just the bare minimum (I mean, I think ANY American should know that much, no? But I'm 150% English. With added 50% of USA and rising? that's 200% from both worlds).Here's the thing though. It doesn't matter that you don't know who Bob Haldeman was, you'll figure out enough of what's going on via context, and then the rest of the movie will work its magic on you. By the time the credits roll you'll be saying, that was so awesome, even though you still couldn't tell me what John Ehrlichmans title was at the White House. I've explained the level of complexity in the story as way of illustrating all the challenges this movie overcomes. What winds up happening isn't that the complexity overwhelms the viewer the viewer picks up on the necessary elements and enjoys the movie, while the Watergate-knowledgeable viewer winds up having a film full of details and minutiae to cherish.How do they do it? By focusing on the excitement of it. The adventure. All the President's Men is a thriller, people!! This is the greatest detective story of all time. Woodward and Bernstein were on a quest for the truth, and the truth was being protected by the most powerful people on the planet, with the full force of the government behind them!Woodward and Bernstein slowly come together as a team, and then slowly come to realise exactly what they're dealing with. Their suspicion grows. Evidence mounts.But as the story builds, so does the pressure. The stakes. Other newspapers are racing them to find the truth and to break the story first. People are trying to discredit them. At one point, their editor, Ben Bradlee (portrayed by Jason Robards, who won an Academy Award for this role) tell them, Were under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there. Nothings riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys f*ck up again, Im going to get mad. Goodnight.He wasn't exaggerating, either. Had the Nixon Whitehouse succeeded in blocking their investigation and remained in power, who knows what the consequences would have been for the press. It certainly wouldn't have boded well for the Washington Post, as Nixon most assuredly would have done everything in his power to bring them down."All the President's Men" is truer to the craft of journalism than to the art of storytelling, and that's its problem. The movie is as accurate about the processes used by investigative reporters as we have any right to expect, and yet process finally overwhelms narrative -- we're adrift in a sea of names, dates, telephone numbers, coincidences, lucky breaks, false leads, dogged footwork, denials, evasions, and sometimes even the truth. Just such thousands of details led up to Watergate and the Nixon resignation, yes, but the movie's more about the details than about their results.That's not to say the movie isn't good at accomplishing what it sets out to do. It provides the most observant study of working journalists we're ever likely to see in a feature film (Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein may at last, merciful God, replace Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns as career models). And it succeeds brilliantly in suggesting the mixture of exhilaration, paranoia, self-doubt, and courage that permeated the Washington Post as its two young reporters went after a presidency.Newspaper movies always used to play up the excitement and ignore the boredom and the waiting. This one is all about the boredom and the waiting and the tireless digging; it depends on what we already know about Watergate to provide a level of excitement. And yet, given the fact that William Goldman's screenplay is almost all dialogue, almost exclusively a series of scenes of people talking (or not talking) to each other, director Alan J. Pakula has done a remarkable job of keeping the pace taut. Does History still repeats itself?

"All the Presidents Men" isn't about the water-gate scandal but the incredible journalism required to uncover it, and the overwhelming repression of the facts that Nixon achieved by abusing his power.We meet Woodward and Bernstein who seem to compliment each other so well that their boss not only assigns them to uncover water-gate together, but he nicknames them Woodstein. Bernstein has been in the business since he was 16, so he has more experience with writing than Woodward, who got to the Washington Post 9 months before the beginning of water-gate. However, Bernstein is light on facts, and he's desperate for a story so he infers more than he uses factual evidence. Woodward, on the other hand, is an honest man that has a drive to uncover the truth that is unmatched by Bernstein. They compliment each other perfectly.The film gets a bit confusing plot-wise towards the end, but what it succeeds at is making the viewer feel how Woodstein felt, and revealing the extent to which Nixon went to cover up details, as well as the sheer scale of the scandal. The way in which the film slowly unravels the scandal until Woodward realizes he and no one else is safe is perfect. The film is surprisingly comedic at many moments, such as the long shot of how Bernstein got into a certain meeting, as well as (of course) many very tense moments, including one long take that slowly, almost imperceptibly zooms in on Woodward while people gather in the background, showing Woodward's focus, as well as ours. This scene is particularly involving and exciting, despite just being a man talking on the phone, because of this reason. Anot her one is a scene in which they are trying to confirm who "P" is. The set up is crucial for that one. The film is chock full of these moments, they allows us feel the tension and paranoia that they did, the latter being most notable in Woodward's multiple meetings with "Deep Throat", which take place in an empty, dimly lit garage in which we never get a clear shot of Deep Throat's face, making him mysterious, and in one scene, scary. It's an incredibly involving movie, and it's final shot reflects it's message perfectly: two TVs playing Nixon being elected in front of and behind Woodward and Bernstein, who face each other, writing in between the two TVs. Nixon is on the outside, smiling as many people cheer around him. But at the core of this image are two people, Woodward and Bernstein, uncovering the scandal from the inside with nothing but typewriters.