Plot summary (with spoilers): Real life footage of Nixon on the floor of Congress. The entirety of the House of Representatives, his cabinet, and assembled guests rise to their feet and applaud boisterously at his entrance. Jack Nicholson's in the front row with those shades. Billy Crystal and Bruce Villanch are backstage coming up with some crazy one-liners. Nixon beams from ear to ear, even though he's even though he is a crook and a criminal, because he is a sociopath. Fade out.
Some time earlier, some hoodlums are caught breaking into the Watergate Hotel, at the DNC Headquarters. They're arraigned in court. Devastatingly handsome Washington Post reporter Bob Woodard is dispatched from his newspaper to check out the arraignment. (He would never need to offer me a million, I'll tell you what). He finds it fishy that the common criminals have a high-priced lawyer at the ready to defend them. He wonders if they're more than common criminals and perhaps they were trying to bug the DNC headquarters. Ooh. Watergategate!
A source at the jail calls Woodward and tells him that "Howard Hunt--W House" was found in the address book of one of the criminals. Sneaky. Is that a Wishing House? A Wine House? A Wintercoat House? So many possibilities! Woodward's not only prettier than me, but much smarter, and calls the White House and learns that Howard Hunt works closely with Charles Colson, Special Counsel to the White House. He calls Howard Hunt and asks him why his name was in the address book? Howard says "Good God!" and hangs up immediately. Howard shouldn't play poker. Eventually, they learn Hunt used to work for Charles Colson and also the CIA. Woodward asks the White House rep what exactly Hunt did at the White House and they volunteer that there's no way Hunt had anything to do with the break in. Sheesh.
There's a lot of investigating and names being thrown about, and then Bernstein gets involved. They Meet Cute when Bernstein takes Woodward's copy and rewrites it on some sort of computer keyboard that doesn't have a monitor. Woodward likes Bernstein's moxie and they start working together.
They go to a place with lots and lots of books and archived newspapers and stuff. Near as I can tell, it's like some kind of real-life version of google. I don't know. The seventies were weird.
Woodward then decides it's time to call his favorite source, the enigmatic Deep Throat. Deep Throat will only meet in secrets and shadows in an undercover parking garage. He asks Deep Throat to give him more info on Watergate. Deep Throat won't tell him what he knows, he'll only tell him if he's on the right track or not. He tells Woodward to "follow the money". Deep Throat is a total drama queen.
Eventually, Woodward and Bernstein do more investigating and learn that the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP. Yes, that's what they actually called it) funneled money to the accounts of the five arrested guys. They run the story, despite their editors not liking that an anonymous source tipped them off to the investigation. They also think it's silly that Nixon would break the law when he was going to easily beat McGovern anyway. Indeed. What kind of paranoid lunatic would do such a thing?
A female co-worker who once dated a Nixon staff member gives Woodward and Bernstein the names of those who worked for CREEP. They go through a litany of former CREEP employees, looking for a lead. They eventually question Hugh Sloan Jr. Sloan was the CREEP treasurer. He says he's a Republican, but that what Nixon did was wrong. He admits that he and White House Chief of Staff Halderman engaged in a "ratfucking" campaign to discredit Democratic candidates. They feared that Edward Muskie would win the Democratic primary and wanted an easier opponent like McGovern, so they published a fake letter that they claimed Muskie wrote. It was called the Canuck Letter, and it was supposedly from Muskie and in it he said racist things about French-Canadians. This lost him the nomination, though the letter was later proven a forgery. I remind you, this is not fiction.
They publish this article and the White House issues a non-denial denial, attacking the paper, but not denying the story. Woodward and Bernstein press on.
Woodward meets up with creepy weirdo Deep Throat again. He tells him about "ratfucking" and wants to know if that's all there is to the story. Deep Throat says there's more, but won't say what. But Woodward has had it with Deep Throat's stupid games, and demands answers, dammit! Deep Throat finally admits that everyone all the way up to Nixon new about the "ratfucking" campaign and the break-in and the "entire intelligence community" helped. He leaves the garage, and Woodward walks back to his car in the dark, entirely spooked and for the first time wondering about his safety. Great scene.
TV footage of the Republican National Convention blare on in the foreground of the the Washington Post as Nixon accepts his nomination. In the background, Woodward and Bernstein are working hard, typing away on their monitor-less keyboards. We see a series of typed article headlines, that catch us up all the way to Nixon's resignation. Fade out. Whatever; Gawker and TMZ would've figured that shit out in half the time, and would've been way snarkier.
Review: Okay, so...abbreviated summary this time, for a couple reasons. A) I watched the movie a week ago, and didn't get a chance to write about it, so it's not fresh in my mind and B) It was really fucking confusing and complicated and mostly just had people talking a lot. I suppose it's commendable that the movie didn't talk down to the audience, and maybe I should be a little embarrassed that I needed to be talked down to so much, but damn. I guess I needed to know more than just the broad strokes of the whole Watergate scandal before going into this. I imagine in 1976, all the names and details were familiar to most people, so a lot of hand-holding and exposition weren't required.
The movie itself was intriguing, even when I was confused. I can scarcely wrap my head around the idea of Bush or Obama standing on the floor Congress and resigning because of some newspaper reporters. That must've been mind blowing to be alive at the time and watching that shit go down. Unfortunately, the movie doesn't really linger there. The typing montage at the end briefly discusses the missing tapes, Angew's resignation, the White House stonewalling, and eventually Nixon resigning all in about thirty seconds. Those are the scenes I really wanted to see, not Bernstein manipulating some politician's wife for info on ratfucking. Though I realize those scenes probably wouldn't have much of the dashing Bob Woodward in them.
The stuff we got, while undeniably interesting, was also a bit dry, and by rote. Almost no info was provided about anyone's private life. Woodward tells an interviewee late in the movie that he's a Republican. The news comes as a surprise, though thinking about it, he may have been lying to her. Who knows? The movie doesn't seem to think that's important, but to me it would give him credibility as someone seeking the truth rather than seeking to bolster an agenda. There's also some initial lip service in the beginning to how Bernstein and Woodward have different approaches to writing, and don't really get along, but we really never even see that. In the end, save for one awesome spooky scene with Woodward and Deep Throat at the end, it was almost like a documentary with actors. I think I would've liked a documentary more.
I think ultimately, the movie is the epitome of being something that is "of its time". If I weren't in diapers in 1976, I probably would've found it to be excellent. As it is, I can at least appreciate it.
Stars: Three out of five.
Next up, "Forrest Gump", (which I still haven't forgiven for beating Pulp Fiction, so be prepared) and then "In The Heat of the Night".
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