Everyone knows the scandal but not many know the man who was responsible was a number 2 at the FBI and that makes for a promising start. After all the whistle blower's point of view should be more exciting than the reporter's point of view as in All the President's Men. With Assange and Snowden and Chelsea Manning it seemed quite relevant to bring this sort of thing up again. The sinister White House powers against the independence of the FBI and Liam Neeson's shining integrity are quite interesting at first. But the posturing doesn't lead to much. I felt I didn't learn that much more beyond these two facts. The most disappointing thing was the final reveal that brought down Nixon seemed like an anti climax.

Diane Lane as long suffering wife looks young again and so does Scandal's Tony Goldwyn as an FBI men in a suit. Another suit is played by Josh Lucas. It's good that familiar faces are in these supporting roles so the viewer can recognize them quickly. Liam himself is fine if a bit haggard looking - hope this was just make up for the role.

It's not a waste of time but it isn't a must watch.

From the very beginning, in order to understand everything, you do have to pay close attention to each scene and dialogue. While the cutting in most areas of the movie is very precise and fine for the tone, there were a couple bits that seemed an odd transition. I found the story shown quite intriguing, though I have not looked in detail in the real-life story. The conclusion felt a bit anti-climatic, but it is an okay ending.

I would consider this movie watchable if you enjoy a tense and a semi-complicated plot structure for a movie. I would even say it can be re-watched occasionally, though there is little humour displayed.

"Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House" (this title is a bit too sensational for my liking, almost works against the idea and subject this way, just "Felt" would have been much better) is a new 100-minute movie and the most recent release by writer and director Peter Landesman. After collaborating with Will Smith and Oprah previously, his lead actor is Oscar nominee Liam Neeson. He plays the man whose books were also taken as the basis for this movie here: Mark Felt and the film's title already gives away the basis of the film here as he is the one who massively contributed to bringing down Richard Nixon as a consequence of the Watergate affair. By the way, the real Felt died less than a decade ago and he was the associate director of the FBI already under the lead of Hoover. This is referenced early on in this film too, but after Hoover's death the film is all about the title character for sure. And how he deals with issues in his professional as well as private lives. The latter refers to his marriage as well as the apparently complicated relationship with his daughter, but I must say that this was executed really not well at all. It was totally rushed in to be honest and I don't know if they were really expecting an emotional reaction from the audience too when Felt finds his daughter in the end. It was pretty embarrassing and should have been left out completely.

Luckily with the connection to the FBI and Deep Throat and Watergate, the film does a much better job, but this is of course also the key story. I think Neeson did a pretty good job overall, even if it is a bit sad to see him aged that hard. Still, it is probably not a performance or movie that will get a great deal of attention from the Oscars, probably none at all. But why? It's dealing with one of the crucial events from 20th century American politics. It's difficult to say why. Maybe because most of the supporting players, if not all of them, were somewhat underwhelming and with that I don't mean the performances, but the material they were given. The best example is Eddie Marsan, a really versatile actor, who was reduced to a one-scene character. Maybe it was that they would not take any attention away from Neeson. By the way, Michael C. Hall (Dexter) is in it too, even if almost unrecognizable. While telling an interesting story, I still feel that the whole subject is still not 100% clear with what was going on behind the scenes that I would say that this hurts the film's overall perception a bit too. It's tough to make a revealing movie when not everything is actually revealed. Ironically enough, the subject itself is also about revelations back then already. So yes, it wasn't a bad watch, but I think the subject offered a lot more than they managed to achieve here. It's not among the list of the defining and best edge-of-seat political thrillers from recent years. Quite a pity indeed. Nonetheless, I still give it a thumbs-up, a cautious one though as the last pretty great scene and shot can't make me forget about the great deal of mediocrity before. Politics may not really be Landesman's thing. If you like Neeson or the genre, preferably both, then you probably won't be disappointed here.