Liam Neeson's 'Mark Felt' commands underwhelming Watergate drama
In the fact-based drama "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House," Liam Neeson plays a powerful person with a particular set of skills.
As second-in-command of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the tight-lipped, stoically tempered Mark Felt knows where all the political skeletons are buried.
So when longtime FBI director Edgar J. Hoover dies and the agency's leadership goes up for grabs, Felt would be the natural, obvious choice to succeed him.
But no.
The job goes to political appointee L. Patrick Gray (an appropriately slithery Marton Csokas), an aide for President Richard M. Nixon.
How Felt reacts to this after a lifetime of FBI loyalty should be the basis for riveting drama. Despite Neeson's excellent portrait of a stone-solid G-man's G-man, this movie fails to achieve it.
As directed by writer Peter Landesman, "Mark Felt" feels like a timid made-for-TV movie cowering in the shadow of the 1976 journalism classic "All the President's Men," following two Washington Post reporters whose investigation of a Democratic headquarters break-in at the Watergate Hotel led to Nixon's resignation as president.
The reporters, Bob Woodward (who grew up in Wheaton) and Carl Bernstein, relied on information provided by an inside source known only by a code name: "Deep Throat," derived from the title of the massively successful 1972 adult movie.
Only the reporters knew Deep Throat's true identity. Thirty-one years after Nixon's resignation, Felt revealed his role in the Watergate scandal.
His story is made of the stuff that not even the writers for "House of Cards" could concoct. Yet, this plodding, nuts-and-bolts narrative musters all the thrills of a filibuster.
Consider that nothing happens in "All the President's Men." Seriously, nothing happens. No killings. No fights. No chases. We just watch two reporters running down leads for two hours, and it's a fascinating detective story.
Now, "Mark Felt" features backstabbing, dirty tricks (through Tom Sizemore's sleazy, old-school FBI agent), strained relationships (involving Felt's troubled wife, played by Diane Lane), and political pressures brought to bear on investigators to sandbag the case.
Yet, the only moments that truly engage us belong to Neeson, whose placid exterior barely conceals the tightly wound spring inside, about to sprong! at any second.
A humanizing subplot involving Felt's search for his missing, estranged daughter feels dramatically inert, almost like a rote add-on.
The real Felt wound up being convicted of ordering illegal FBI searches, but was pardoned by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
As you can tell, "Mark Felt" didn't lack for intriguing material. Just intriguing execution.
“Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House”
★ ★ ½
Starring: Liam Neeson, Diane Lane, Josh Lucas, Tony Goldwyn, Tom Sizemore
Directed by: Peter Landesman
Other: A Sony Pictures Classics release. Rated PG-13 for language. 103 minutes