No other film blends the elements of journalism and Washington intrigue more compellingly than "All the President's Men," the story of two Washington Post reporters who helped take down the No. 1 resident on Pennsylvania Avenue, transforming both politics and journalism.
Not only did The Post win a Pulitzer for its Watergate coverage, but this film was also nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture (it lost to "Rocky").
The story is as riveting today as it was 20 years ago. What's dated are the dial telephones, typewriters and haircuts. The movie opens with typewriter keys thunderously hammering on paper with the date of June 1, 1972, the day President Nixon returned from China. Sixteen days later the infamous break-in occurred.
Director Scorsese's and writer Paul Schrader's grittily urban, sociopathic fever dream about warped antihero and self-proclaimed "God's lonely man" Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is one of cinema's finest alienated character sketches. Bickle tellingly loses his nerve when facing the forces representing social order, but is near superhuman when battling the fringe element with which he's more closely aligned. Riveting.
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