Tireless investigative reporting on the part of Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) confirms that high-ranking Nixon officials hired the burglars and orchestrated the cover-up. Watergate scandals, of course, eventually forced Nixon to resign in disgrace in 1974.
Other journalistic heroes in the Post newsroom are Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards), Howard Simons (Martin Balsam), and Harry Rosenfeld (Jack Warden). Hal Holbrook plays "Deep Throat", Woodward's clandestine high-ranking source at the FBI, years later revealed as second-in-command Mark Felt.
Ned Beatty shows up as a Miami official. Jane Alexander plays a key source inside "CREEP", the Committee to Re-Elect the President. Robert Walden plays Donald Segretti, a dirty trickster for Nixon. Stephen Collins is CREEP official Sloan, involved in payoffs to the burglars. Meredith Baxter, later of the "Family Ties" sitcom, plays Sloan's comely wife. Lindsay Crouse has an important scene as a reporter talked into securing a CREEP employee list for "Woodstein".
Only the first half of source book was used in the movie. The film wraps up loose ends with a series of typewritten headlines ending in Nixon's White House exit.
How others will see it. A-list stars Redford and Hoffman, and continued public interest in Watergate, resulted in All the President's Men becoming one of the biggest box office hits of 1976. The film did even better with critics. At the major film festivals, the movie was a standout. It received ten BAFTA nominations, four major Golden Globe nominations, and eight Oscar nods, including wins for Best Supporting Actor (Robards) and Best Screenplay (Goldman). Alas, it fell short in the categories of Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Film Editing.
Today at imdb.com, the movie has a big 92K user votes and a lofty user rating of 8.0 out of 10. There is minimal demographic spread among voters. The user reviews are awash in praise for the story, the various actors, and for the film's authenticity, down to hiring the actual security guard who alerted police to the break-in to recreate his role.
How I felt about it. Screenwriter William Goldman was for years a good-luck charm for Redford. He had written Butch Cassiday and the Sundance Kid, The Hot Rock, and The Great Waldo Pepper. The story goes that Redford personally chose both Goldman as writer and Hoffman as co-star.
Both moves proved shrewd. Hoffman, although currently hobbled by the Me Too movement, has to be regarded as one of the best supporting actors of his generation. And Goldman's script outlasted production competition from Woodward and Bernstein themselves, as well as professional writer Nora Ephron, at the time dating Bernstein.
While Redford is less versatile an actor than Hoffman, he is also more likable, and he has a creditable knack for making good movies, at least through Quiz Show (1994).
Long-term, the biggest winners from the film was the Washington Post, crowned here as the epitome of stellar First Amendment journalist. In the cynical aftermath of Watergate, at least one institution could be relied upon for integrity: the free press. This is less so today, given that financial interest has obligated much of the press to cater to either conservative or liberal audiences.