Remember when a national political disgrace brought down a president? No, not 2017...at least not yet. It was 1974 and the "Watergate Scandal" led to the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon right before his impeachment process was set to begin.
The third film in the loosely-assembled "'70s Paranoia Trilogy" of director Alan Pakula, All the President's Men was both an award-winning film and a box-office smash. People wanted their schadenfreude on the big screen and this movie gave it to them. There hasn't been a truly great investigative journalism movie after President's until maybe, 2015's Oscar-winning Spotlight.
Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, in both their '70s rumpled handsome glory, play Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who are the masterminds behind uncovering the truth about the Watergate burglary/wiretapping of the DNC offices, and its connection to the CIA and Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (with that wonderfully accurate acronym of CREEP).
A main source of information to Woodward and Bernstein is "Deep Throat," an anonymous senior government official who will meet with them in person only under cover of night in an empty parking garage. "Follow the money" is Mr. Throat's main message.
Where does it lead? To the Chief of Staff and the U.S. intelligence community, of course. As Nixon is sworn in for his second term in January, 1973, Woodward and Bernstein are writing their Post expose that breaks the whole case wide open.
As we just passed the 40th anniversary of this film last year, we can compare and contrast our current political situation. The attempt to break into the opposing team's information stronghold is reflected in the Russian hacks this past summer on the DNC. But the foiled burglary and wiretaps of Watergate seem bumbling and quaint now in the face of a Trump/Orwellian manipulation of facts, hacking enabling, media silencing, strong-arming, and general despot-isms.
Where are our Woodward and Bernstein today? Our Deep Throat? Our All the President's Men?
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