How important can a reporter’s job become? What consequences can a reporter’s story have? “All the President’s Men” shows an inside look into just how dangerous and significant a reporter’s job can be. Although the Watergate scandal is a household term today, many young people might not understand its significance or know the huge role that journalism had in bringing the guilty to justice. This film explores the many challenges of being a journalist, although this time, a lot is on the line. Two skilled but relatively unknown journalists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, find themselves investigating crimes and accusing men at the very top of the government and intelligence agencies, including the president, Richard Nixon. It makes a great movie but what makes it even more interesting is that it’s all true.
If you’re looking for a movie that shows the point of view of Nixon and his law-breaking accomplices, this film isn’t going to deliver. This movie is about the heroes at The Washington Post. It focuses on the journalists who worked tirelessly to bring these high profile crooks to justice. It’s got a chain-smoking Dustin Hoffman with atrocious hair going through the agonies of finding sources when nobody wants to talk. It’s got late night rendezvous with Deepthroat in a sketchy parking garage. It’s also one of the most in-depth movies on the Watergate scandal and a great look inside 1970s journalism during a crowning achievement. If these men at the Post didn’t work tirelessly, sometimes putting their very lives in danger, to get this story printed, who knows how much longer those crooked politicians would have stolen and lied to the American people and the Constitution they were hired to protect and to serve?
This film shows that although the role of the journalist may be the bane of a politician’s existence, it really is an integral part of any democracy. The real-life men represented here show us that no matter how far down the rabbit hole a story goes, it is a journalist’s job to pursue the truth. Who else can keep members of the government in check when they have the FBI and CIA working to cover up their crimes?
Promo Trailer
Long before presidents cried about “fake news,” journalists wouldn’t dream of accusing the most powerful man in the country of criminal corruption. That is just what two journalists, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, played by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, did in the 1970s. They put their careers and even their lives on the line for one of the biggest stories on political corruption of the century. We all know what happened to Richard Nixon, but just how close was he from getting away with it all? Can Carl Bernstein’s hair get any sillier? Why is a man named Deepthroat in the Watergate scandal? Find out all these burning questions and more in, “All the President’s Men.”
