Really pretty good for a movie that is 95% “white guys smoking & talking in rooms.”

“All the President’s Men” is a 1976 political thriller about Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two Washington Post journalists who uncovered a web of lies, cover-ups and corruption following the Watergate scandal. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman stars as Woodward and Bernstein, respectively, and they spend nearly the entire runtime grilling members of President Nixon’s reelection campaign searching for answers. Their exhaustive efforts eventually culminate in the collapse of the Nixon administration, just as in the real life story that this movie is based on.

Redford and Hoffman were very good as leading men; of course-Redford was the real showstopper, I felt. I really liked how the movie took you along for every step of the way in their investigation–in many shots, the camera pushed in close on Woodward talking on the phone to convey a sense of being right there with him. My favorite shot showed an overhead view of his notepad covered in names and scribbles, mapping pieces of the puzzle he’s assembling from phone conversations. As a result of this, however, there are some scenes that are really quite a drag. I wouldn’t call the movie a total snoozefest, but there were some scenes that went on for quite longer than they should have–mostly the final interviews towards the end of the movie. But there were other scenes that were very good, legitimately thrilling segments. I particularly enjoyed seeing how their situation got increasingly more dangerous. In one scene, Woodward tears down the street in fear, afraid that someone is following him. In another, both journalists communicate through a typewriter because of their fear of being bugged.

For the source material that they had, I was surprised that the movie was as intense as it was. Rather than taking place on the street or on a battleground, the action takes place on the phone or in a dimly lit living room. All of the night sequences I also enjoyed very much–most of the movie has little to no music except in the outdoor night scenes. There was a really great vibe to those parts. My personal favorite parts of the movie were the typewriter shots of the letters being pounded onto each page. You really get a jolt at the beginning of the movie when the typewriter immediately starts clacking away.

All in all, a pretty solid true story/political thriller. I liked it.