Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House 2017

     The setting of this film is 1972 following the death of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.  He had been the director for fifty years and three Presidents had considered firing him.  L. Patrick Gray is appointed Acting Director and he’s an outsider.  This has never happened before.  Mark Felt expected to be appointed to this job since he has worked for the FBI for 30 years and Mark thinks this is a major snub.  Mark and wife Audrey feel that they have sacrificed their own personal lives for the Bureau.  The first case for this new Bureau is the break-in and bugging of the Democratic National Committee offices.  Unofficially, this case is called Watergate named after the building complex where the break-in took place.

     In any film about the government, the best advice is to “follow the money!!”  After the death of Hoover, Mark Felt instructed the Bureau to destroy all Hoover's private files.  When the Nixon appointee L. Patrick Gray came looking for them, there wasn’t anything left to give him!!  Felt was described as “the G-Man’s G-Man.”  He was competent, reliable, loyal and the FBI was in his blood.  I thought this film was interesting and also a follow-up to the film The Post of 2018 about the Pentagon Papers.  The Watergate incident was right after the release of these Papers.  The Papers were released by the New York Times on June 13, 1971 and released June 18, 1971 in The Post.  The Watergate break in was occurred on June 17, 1972.  3 1/2* (I liked this movie)

103 min, Bio directed by Peter Landesman with Liam Neeson, Diane Lane, Marton Csokas, Tony Goldwyn, Ike Barinholtz, Josh Lucas, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Kate Walsh, Brian d’Arcy James, Maika Monroe, Michael C. Hall, Tom Sizemore, Julian Morris, Bruce Greenwood, Noah Wyle.

Note:  Imdb 6.4 out of 10, 35% critic 44% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 3*, Amazon Video 4.1* out of 5* with 147 reviews,

Special Note:  Originally titled Felt and also The Silent Man.  Much of Diane Lane’s performance was cut due to run time.  The person tipping off the press about Watergate was nicknamed Deep Throat because of the extensive knowledge of the informant.  It was unknown who this person was for 30 years.