Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men - an adaptation of the Woodward and Bernstein book recounting their uncovering of the Watergate scandal of the same title - is above anything else, a brilliantly tight, well conceived thriller, intoxicatingly efficient in the subtle unravelling of its shadowy, labyrinthine plot of veiled interests and systemic corruption.
The film of course focuses on the efforts of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, played in remarkably stripped back fashion by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman respectively, as they investigate the events surrounding the Watergate scandal that eventually led to the resignation of President Nixon. When I say it focuses on these events, it really does - this one sticks to a refreshingly single-minded view of its main characters, devoid of any of the tempting sub-plots or love interests that could have been introduced, it is a film that characterises its protagonists as little more than reporters, consumed by their work.
However, this is not to say that the portrayal of Woodward and Bernstein is poorly fleshed out. In fact, one of the great strengths of this film is the delicacy with which the two reporters differences in approach are rendered: Woodward is charming, teasing information away from people, whereas Bernstein takes a more bullish approach. Essential to this are the convincingly dogged performances of Redford and Hoffman, who supported by an entertainingly grizzled collection of editors and a slick script from William Goldman, inject tension and verve into moments where the film could have dragged.
Like Spotlight (a film that certainly owes a lot to All the President's Men) but to an even greater degree, this is a film consumed by the mundane minutiae of investigative journalism: following up leads, pawing through record books, and extracting information from painfully unhelpful sources. At no point do they happen upon a miraculously helpful witness or some technology which cuts a corner for them, instead we are shown the brutally painstaking process in all its glory.
It would also be blasphemous not to mention the cinematography of Gordon Willis that full of some brilliant flourishes, elevates the film to soaringly cinematic heights. Indeed this is a film stuffed with inspired, relentlessly enduring images: the shadowy, noir inflected "Deep Throat", shrouded in icy darkness; the dizzying overhead of the library that highlights the imposing might of the institutions against which the reporters are pitted; the deftly framed images of office TVs that provide a subtle critique of the media. Most films would be happy to have one or two of these, All the President's Men has dozens.
Nowadays, this is a film that effectively functions as a period piece, beating to the click clack of typewriters, it evokes a distant time of analogue technology. Despite this, the tale of corrosive abuse of power that All the President's Men tells feels equally vital today, what with Trump and others such as Erdogan around the world. We may have social media and mobile phones but they don't seem to have changed a huge amount in that regard. Perhaps there'll be a Trump based All the President's Men-esque film a few years down the line.
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