In the build-up to the 1972 US elections, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward investigated what seemed to be a minor break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters, the editor of the Post was prepared to run with the story and assigned Woodward and Carl Bernstein to it. Their painstaking research found the trail leading higher and higher in the Republican Party and, eventually, into the White House itself and led to the downfall of Nixon. An intelligent and exciting dramatic reconstruction.< find out more...
Lumet's complex and atmospheric thriller is based on a real event. Pacino is superb as the neurotic and incompetent gay bankrobber who needs the money from the robbery to finance his lover's sex change operation. The film's beauty is it's closely detailed psychological observation. Excellent.
find out more...Phyllis Dietrichson is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who inspires in her nothing but contempt, but rather than leave him Phyllis decides to kill him and collect on the insurance policy she's had set up with the help of her lover, and naive partner in crime, insurance salesman Walter Neff. The only flaws in their plan are the company's reluctance to pay out so much, the diligence of Neff's increasingly suspicious colleague, (and his 'little man'), and the exemplary ruthlessness of Ph find out more...
An excellent black comedy, handsome thriller and a tall story that keeps you guessing as it unwinds. The genuinely ridiculous plot (a man pays a couple of goons to 'pretend' to kidnap his wife in order to get his paws on his in-laws' 'ransom' money) is completely credible as mighty plans fall apart, spiralling ever more beyond the protagonist's control and leaving us marvelling at the complex stupidity of human nature. A modern classic.
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