Film Review: Cautionary ‘Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House’

Submitted by PatrickMcD on October 7, 2017 - 11:33am

CHICAGO – Everything old is new again, in the 1970s story of the infamous “Deep Throat” – the source in the FBI who tipped off the Washington Post about the issues surrounding Watergate scandal – who revealed himself in 2005. He is now the subject of a new film, and is portrayed by Liam Neeson, in “Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House.”

Rating: 3.5/5.0

It’s a blistering history lesson, and again the more revealed about the Richard M. Nixon administration the more it becomes clear that the Republican Party agenda was/is based in acquiring power rather than serving the American people. Mark Felt was an old-school FBI agent that wasn’t so innocent himself – he was somewhat of a bag boy for J. Edgar Hoover – but he saw injustice and used his power of knowing where the “bodies were buried” to bring down the corrupt Nixon. The film gets a bit choppy at the end, as if there was more to it, and the introduction of Felt’s personal life distracted from the main procedural. It still was compelling history, and a cautionary tale that evokes today’s presidential situation.

Mark Felt (Liam Neeson) was a clear-cut FBI man, the second in rank only to Director J. Edgar Hoover in the early 1970s. Richard Nixon was the president at that time, and his agenda becomes apparent with the death of Hoover in 1972. After the smoke (made possible by the burning of Hoover’s “secret files”) clears, Nixon puts his own man as Director of the FBI, L. Patrick Gray (Marton Csokas), undermining Felt’s power and position.

Around the same time, the Washington, D.C.-based Democrat Party offices, headquartered in the Watergate Hotel, are broken into. The FBI investigation of the events are compromised by Gray and Nixon, and Felt feels impelled to go to the Washington Post newspaper and leak the key details. He is the infamous “Deep Throat” source for reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, and his information brings down the Nixon White House.

”Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House” continues its nationwide release in Chicago on October 6th. See local listings for theaters and show times. Featuring Liam Neeson, Diane Lane, Bruce Greenwood, Noah Wyle, Marton Csokas and Tom Sizemore. Written and directed by Peter Landesman. Rated “PG-13”