All the President's Men
Starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman
Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel
All the President's Men is a docudrama about the investigation of Watergate, based upon the book of the same title written by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who originally broke the story of Watergate. The movie deals with how the two reporters investigated the break-in and discovered that there was a lot more going on than anyone expected, a trail of wrongdoing that led right up to the White House.
Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman make a good showing as Woodward and Bernstein (and actually look pretty much like the two men, as I've seen from comparing pictures from the movie and real photos of the actual reporters). But to me what was really interesting was to see the men who'd played the Hawaiian commanders in Tora! Tora! Tora! reappear as members of the Washington Post editorial staff. Jason Robards (Gen. Walter Short) played Ben Bradlee while Martin Balsam (Admiral Husband E. Kimmel) played Howard Simmons. It was interesting to see the two men playing different historical roles and see the similarities and differences in their treatments of them.
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If you enjoyed seeing Jason Robards and Martin Balsam playing the senior editors of the Washington Post, you may also want to see them playing the commanders in Hawaii in Tora! Tora! Tora!
Review posted December 16, 1998
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