Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House

"They want everyone confused. Confusion is control." These are words that a government source tells an uncertain young journalist. The informant is talking about a temperamentally unfit occupant of the Oval Office, an individual less concerned for the well being of the nation he leads than the level of personal loyalty those around him will offer.

The informant, of course, is Mark Felt (Liam Neeson), a.k.a. Deep Throat, the Deputy Associate Director of the FBI who leaked information to the press during the Watergate scandal that ended the presidency of Richard Nixon. Felt's motives for talking to a young reporter named Bob Woodward (Julian Morris) include the brazen ways in which the White House is interfering with, and trying to obstruct, the FBI. There's another scene in which the intimidating, formidable Felt verbally dismembers Nixon flunky John Dean, who has phoned in an attempt to strong-arm him. Using words like scalpels, and never raising his voice, Felt informs Dean that the FBI is its own agency, operates without input or oversight from the White House, and will continue to do just that even as an investigation continues that seems poised to catch up the presidency in its dragnet. Oh, for such assurance and backbone in these limp and surrendering times.

While the film lands right in the middle of Felt's personal and professional lives, and spins its wheel there - never really delivering on either the private or political fronts in the kind of detail you wish for - the central point that writer-director Peter Landesman is trying to make (that corruption and the abuse of power neither began nor ended with the Nixon administration; it's been with us as long as there have been kings, presidents, or any other sort of leader) rings out loud and clear.

Other aspects of the film also ring out - sometimes with the subtly of multiple underlines in red Sharpie - as with the editing, which has a habit of zeroing in on the nervous mannerisms of various characters. Felt moves through a challenging work environment where good colleagues like Ed Miller (Tony Goldwyn) and Charlie Bates (Josh Lucas) might have to be sacrificed for Felt's cause, and his every move must be calculated under the anxious gaze of his new boss, Director L. Patrick Gray (Marton Csokas).

At home, Felt has an alcoholic wife named Audrey (Diane Lane) to deal with in all her frustrated, incendiary glory. (Dig Audrey's red dress, which Landesman, in an audio commentary, reveals was intended to signal that she's emotionally on the verge of bursting into flames.) Audrey was too much for daughter Joan (Maika Monroe) who simply took off one day, leaving no forwarding address; now, with radical groups like Weather Underground setting off bombs, Felt is plagued by the gnawing fear that these might be the very people Joan has fallen in with.

The movie writhes and gyrates in different directions, and never seems to gather itself into the sort of overall tautness that its thriller-esque direction and score want it to. But Neeson does sell Felt as a deeply honorable, absolutely incorruptible man of high integrity who, forced to break his professional credo to defend his country, finds it within himself to move past paralyzing ideologies and get the job - the job in its purest form in the upholding of the spirit of American law - accomplished. Little wonder, then, that another, more experienced, journalist, Sandy Smith (Bruce Greenwood), upon eyeing Felt and getting a sense for what he's against, offers him words of appreciation: "They must be terrified of you."

The Blu-ray's extras include the above-mentioned audio commentary with Ladesman, who's happy to explain the film's many references and visual influences, including American painter Edward Hopper. There's also a 10-minute featurette, "The Secrets of Making Mark Felt," that includes interviews with Landesman, Neeson, and others from the film's cast and crew; Neeson nails it when he utters a truth that guided his character in 1972 and holds true even now: "The President of the United States not above the law." There are also deleted and extended scenes, as well as theatrical trailers.

"Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"
Blu-ray
$30.99
Buy it here