In the bonus track of the DVD of "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House," the film's writer-director Peter Landesman, described enthusiastically how he attempted to depict in the story of lifelong FBI official Mark Felt as "the self-sacrifice of heroism in the face of massive corruption." But for many reasons, Landesman, a talented writer and director, failed to evoke a cinematic superhero in Mark Felt.
First, the production values of the film were dark, gloomy, and depressing. Landesman used an antique anamorphic camera lens in the effort to evoke the early 1970s and an aura of suspense. But the results were downright depressing. It was odd that in the bonus track, one of the performers described the 1970s as an exciting time to be alive. But the look of the film resembled a morgue and an ashen-faced Liam Neeson taking on the aura of a galvanized corpse.
Second, the overall treatment of the Watergate scandal was superficially treated. The film artists described the environment of the FBI as "black and white" when in fact there were many shades of grey. The men in suits in this film were uniformly depicted as thugs, as opposed to the clean-cut and impeccably dressed men of the Hoover era. The film actually took on the feel of "The Godfather."
Third, the film suffered from the subplot of Mark Felt's family, including his marriage to a Lady Macbeth-type wife (Diane Lane) and a daughter who, understandably, had fled home to live in a California commune in Ben Lomand in the wilds of Northern California. Kudos to young Joan for figuring out her parents and making an early exit!
Above all, the film failed to probe deeply into the Watergate scandal itself. It was not one man who brought down the president, as the film tried to project. It is likely that after Nixon's trip to China, the intelligence network had had enough of Nixon, and Watergate was the "silent coup" involving multiple participants in the intelligence community, who saw the removal of Nixon from office as being in the best interests of the nation.
One of the most important lines in the film was the assertion that "the FBI is an independent body," as opposed to a branch of the federal government that is part of the Department of Justice. The filmmakers missed a golden opportunity to use the story of Mark Felt as an example of how in the years following World War II and continuing to the present, we really have four branches of our government: the executive, the legislative, the judicial, and, as is all too apparent today, the national security network.
