'Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House' leaves Felt's motivations ambiguous
Liam Neeson cuts an imposing figure in his movies, even those in which he is not required to hunt down really, really bad guys.
Actually, in his new movie, he is still hunting down bad guys, just not in the usual slam-bang way. In 鈥淢ark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House,鈥� Neeson plays the eponymous FBI agent who, as was revealed many years later, was the infamous Deep Throat in the Watergate scandal. As Neeson plays him, Felt is a J. Edgar Hoover loyalist who feels betrayed by the Nixon administration when he鈥檚 passed over for the top job upon Hoover鈥檚 death. Believing that L. Patrick Gray, Nixon鈥檚 handpicked successor to Hoover, won鈥檛 credibly investigate the Watergate break-in, Felt ends up going rogue, spilling beans to Bob Woodward in, yes, deserted underground parking lots.
As written and directed by Peter Landesman, the movie is a straightforward nuts-and-bolts affair of no particular consequence, except for Neeson鈥檚 performance, which rightly does not resolve the question: Was Felt acting nobly or vengefully? Grade:聽C+ (Rated PG-13 for some language.)
