HIDE AND LEAK
‘Mark Felt’ uncovers Deep Throat’s role in Watergate probe
Featuring a performance catapulting Liam Neeson to the front ranks of Academy Award contenders, “Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House” is as relevant as a film gets.
Set during the unfolding Watergate scandal in 1973 that forced Richard M. Nixon to resign the U.S. presidency, the film begins with the 1972 death of legendary FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover and the immediate destruction of his notorious “private files” on such people as Martin Luther King Jr. before the corrupt Nixon regime can get its hands on them.
The “G-man's G-man” Mark Felt (Neeson), a tall, stone-faced agent with 30 years in the bureau, not only looks like he is posing for a statue, but is the statue. He is overlooked for advancement because the Nixon “punks” running the government want their own man in place in order to take away the independence of the bureau and destroy the institution.
Nixon appoints acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray III (a very fine Marton Csokas) in the eventual hopes he can put a stopper into the bureau's inquiries and keep the Watergate imp in its bottle.
But Felt decides to stay on as the No. 2 man for the good of the institution and his younger colleagues — ably played by Tony Goldwyn and Josh Lucas — even if his beautiful, sexy and emotional wife, Audrey (Diane Lane), urges him to resign.
Mark and Audrey have a troubling family problem. Their only child, Joan (Maika Monroe, “It Follows”), has become a young radical and may be a member of the extremist group the Weather Underground. What follows instead is the unlikely arrest of a bunch of “ex-spooks” — bad apples from the FBI and CIA — in the process of bugging the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C.
As they say, it's not the crime but the cover-up. The Nixon administration — “a White House driven crazy by leaks” — adamantly and repeatedly denies any connection to the break-in and tries to obstruct the investigation.
Felt, meanwhile, bathed in the noir visuals of Adam Kimmel and to the jangly beat of a nervous score by Daniel Pemberton, secretly meets with journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post in the famous underground parking garage and with Sandy Smith (Bruce Greenwood) of Time magazine, leaking information to them in an effort to keep the investigation alive.
As the lewdly nicknamed “Deep Throat,” Felt arguably saved our democracy, but his identity was not revealed until 2005. Writer-director Peter Landesman (“Concussion”), adapting a memoir by Felt, wisely uses archival footage of Nixon instead of an actor, giving the film powerful verisimilitude, and it's just as well since repellent Nixon henchman Bill Sullivan (an excellent Tom Sizemore) looks like Nixon's diabolical double.
With that sepulchral voice and Lincoln-esque stature, Neeson is a natural fit for Felt, a dauntless man who knew where all the skeletons and the closets were and was so feared by Nixon and his minions that they were afraid to fire him. Seldom has being reserved seemed so noble or having principles so rare. “Mark Felt” is an “All the President's Men” for our times.
(“Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House” contains profanity.)