Day 197: "Woodward. Bernstein. You're both on the story. Now don't f**k it up."

Returning, yet again, to my new favorite era in American cinema history, today's movie was the brilliant 1976 "docu-drama" All The President's Men.  This premise of this film was too crazy for even the most creative screen writers to come up with, as it is based upon fact.  Yes, I am  aware that many movies are "based on actual events," but the core events in All The President's Men had occurred, at the eldest, four years prior.  The story revolves around the two Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who blew the lid off of the entire Watergate Hotel scandal that eventually brought down a United States President (Richard Nixon).  Beginning with a minor break-in and burglary of the Democratic Party offices, the reporters initially write the event off as it was meant to be perceived, but upon deeper digging and investigation, discover a conspiracy that ends at the President.  The film moves at a great pace, keeping the clues and surprises coming the entire time, and never bogging down into the nit-picky details that can clog an otherwise great thriller.  What sets this movie apart is the accuracy of the story itself.  Yes, there were liberties taken, but only when it came to sources and meetings which could have been incriminating to the parties involved.

Robert Redford (who is quickly climbing my favorite actor list)stars as Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein.  These two greats of American cinema have a wonderful chemistry that is rarely seen on screen.  They play brilliantly off of each other, being at once irritating and funny.  The overall feeling of paranoia that they went through was palpable through their performances.  Jack Warden plays their editor, Harry Rosenfeld; the man who initially teamed the two journalists together for the story.  Perhaps the best role in All The President's Men goes to Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat.  This was the government insider who put Woodward and Bernstein on the right path and confirmed the critical points of the whole conspiracy.

I love it when I hit a home run from this era of movies.  Nowhere else in my lifetime even comes close to the sheer number of brilliant movies then those coming out of the late 60's to late 70's.  I am truly in awe of that period.  Even the horror movies are iconic (see The Omen and The Exorcist for proof).  But I digress.  All The President's Men is another in a long line of brilliance.  This is truly a case of "truth is stranger than fiction."
See it.  10/10.

See you tomorrow, and GO WATCH A MOVIE!!