Is it possible to contribute much to the oft-told story of how a burglary led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1974? The director who made Inside Job (2010), the documentary that explained the 2008 financial meltdown, delivers a more than four hours long exploration through the case, with valuable testimony from people like John Dean, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Patrick Buchanan and every other politician and journalist who was active at the time. An exhausting ride, but it’s fascinating to see how much the Watergate affair and the White House’s actions have to teach us about Trump 45 years later. Nixon’s tapes are dramatized by actors; a good idea considering the sheer size of material, even if the casting disappoints.

2018-U.S. 260 min. Color-B/W. Produced by Charles Ferguson, Krista Parris. Written, directed and narrated by Charles Ferguson.

Last word: “As it became clear that there was going to be a lot of contemporary relevance, the way I changed it was, first of all, I just made it a lot more serious and less humorous. And the other thing that I did that was more important was that I put in much more about, ‘Okay, okay in these circumstances, here’s what the constitution says. Here’s how the system is supposed to work. Here’s how the system did work. Here were the things in the system that worked well. Here were the things in the system that didn’t work well.'” (Ferguson, Meaww.com)

IMDb