All the President's Men (1976, PG)

Directed by: Alan J. Pakula

Grade: B

All the President’s Men, as classic a movie as it is, is still far from flawless.  After a while, it gets, to some extent, rather repetitive in its sequence of events, and furthermore I will admit that it was, here and there, drawn out over the same material.  But providentially, All the President’s Men is still a solid political-thriller, one that isn’t willing to lose any ground, and stands for what it believes is the truth of real-life matters. 

The film starts out enormously well: getting right to the subject and transcending us right into the Watergate Scandal.  It’s a good thing that the film dares not to go off on its own in any other meaningless subjects; as a result, the entire piece is surefooted in its approach to Watergate.  In this way, the film is certainly admirable in that it’s dedicated to presenting the Watergate story, as true or false as it is, but perhaps just as importantly, director Pakula is perfectly willing to depict how reporters and investigators operate and how they perform their own business to write the stories we read in the newspapers today. 

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman are each firmly implanted in their roles, and like the rest of the movie itself, they do their job just as it should be done.  Pakula would have probably rather had the film prepared as a true thriller that grabs you by the throat and won’t stop shaking tell the last of the credits roll on by.  I felt that I was watching what I would call an intense drama, but what’s the difference!?  This is a fine motion picture.  Not supremely masterful, but very successful in its aspiration.

Even today, All the President’s Men has lasted as probably the most striving and influential political-thriller ever made.  For that reason, and for the fact that it stands as a classic film, make it all the more necessary to watch.  Several questions were brought about in my mind in the watching of it, but I will take the liberty to answer only the following ones I had to reflect upon for a while once the film was finished:

Is it an imperfect movie?  Certainly: the reiterative order of scenes make the film a little too extended.  And yet does that have to mean that it’s inadequate as worthy viewing?  Absolutely not.  And so, my consensus comes down to this simple statement: All the President's Men is a firm and unyielding, even if sometimes blemished, political thriller.  B