★★★☆☆
THIS slow-burning but sufficiently taut biographical political thriller from writer-director Peter Landesman (Parkland, Concussion) explores the revelatory true story of Mark Felt, the long-time FBI man who, under the codename Deep Throat, helped journalists at the Washington Post bring down Richard Nixon’s corrupt presidency.
You may know the stunning effects of what this FBI employee of 30-plus years did from the 1976 film All The President’s Men, but this aims to look at the dangerously worded description on the side of that can of worms that he, career-be-damned, decided to open up.
It uses the infamous Watergate Scandal as a jumping-off point for a quite compelling investigative thriller – all hushed conversations in offices, in phone booths and across cafe tables as the truth is slowly uncovered.
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Although it isn’t quite in the same league, it would nevertheless make for a nice companion piece with not only All The President’s Men but also Michael Mann's The Insider, TV’s House Of Cards and journalistic exposé dramas Spotlight and The Post, such is its air of urgency and palpable paranoia cloaking just about every scene.
Liam Neeson is a shrewd choice as Felt and exhibits a commanding presence – white-haired, sharply suited and with piercing eyes as he embarks on a self-appointed, politically world-shaking decision to leak information that would topple the Nixon White House.
“For the first time in history the FBI has been quarantined,” he proclaims in one the film’s many tense meeting room scenes as he explains the president’s attempts to quash what he’s doing. Neeson plays him with conviction so that you believe in Felt’s righteous indignation and ruthlessness to out the truth.
He heads an impressive cast of great character actors, from Marton Csokas to Bruce Greenwood, who populate the story as real-life figures that orbit Felt’s world. Diane Lane brings some welcome depth to Felt’s loving wife Audrey, the kind of role that would ordinarily be sidelined but feels like an integral part of Felt’s journey.
It’s a deliberately paced affair, slow sometimes to a fault but also simmering away ready to boil over at any moment, awash with a sense of paranoia and intrigue as it mounts towards a broad-strokes conclusion so embedded in 20th-century American history.
One certainly can’t help but draw parallels between the film and what’s happening in the world of US politics at this very moment. But although its machinations are timely, that aspect echoes quietly rather than fully resonating, working best as a fresh view of old roots laid firmly in decades-old US history.
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