White House Plumbers

I started watching this series for nostalgic 70's cultural and historical references. But I was quickly hooked on the satiric brilliance of Theroux and Harrelson portraying the Keystone Cops comedic element of the bungling undercover operatives of the Nixon administration. The portrayal of the Liddy's and Hunt's domestic complications works well, too. Their wives/kids play into the cultural zeitgeist of the time, nicely framing the unhinged nature of the "'plumbers' " mission as being detrimental to their families. But the highlight for me has to be Theroux's pitch perfect portrayal of Liddy's pomposity.

I was expecting a serious take on Watergate. However I am not disappointed that it is a satirical look at what happened. I don't know about E. Howard Hunt. But I always thought G Gordon Liddy was a buffoon. And a psycho. (I read his book). So I am enjoying Justin's take on him. I was 19 years old when the hearings were happening. A cousin of mine who was in college at the time was very into it. Only later when the books started coming out did I start paying attention to what happened. Yes I would have preferred a serious series. But I am enjoying this. Not crazy about the person playing of Howard Dean.

Historical accuracy: 9

Acting: 8 Camera work: 8 Editing: 8 Budget: 8 Story: 9 Theme: 9 Pure entertainment factor: 8 Video quality: 8 Special effects: NA Pacing: 8 Suspension of disbelief: 8 Non-cringe factor: 7 Lack of flashbacks: 10

This is a way better intro to the story than any documentary. And let's be clear there have been a ton of documentaries on this case so we all have seen this story many times over. I would still recommend this as the intro to watch. The Martin Sheen TV series is much harder to find and other stuff is not following the main men involved. This is also 100 times better than the Oliver Stone Nixon movie. Overall it's just a clear and concise intro to the case with top tier acting and an amazing focus on history.

I just watched a 1994 BBC documentary about this case. And there was a scene here where Liddy was trying to shoot out a lamp on the street to cover their break-in in darkness. Well, in the documentary he and the other people interviewed said he sat on the shoulders of someone else while doing this. A comedic scene. Now, it could have been easy to just look past such miniscule details and just film the scene fast. 99% of movies and TV shows would not bother with such small details when they are busy changing names and events anyhow. And often you avoid these scenes as they look unrealistic to the audience so you avoid them as much as possible. Yet here they showed this event carefully and made sure to stretch it out and add other details to it. If you know about such details you will adore this TV show for being this realistic. Everything we see here happened as shown, more or less. This is what you get in a comedic TV series that can afford to show what really happened without being afraid of losing the viewer.

Now, some viewers complain about the comedy aspect. It's actually not a comedy. They do ham it up. But this is 1970's USA. This was how people acted and how these fools acted. Watch any interview with the people in charge. This is exactly who they were. They were comedic clowns ready to do anything for the president they loved because they saw themselves as super spies who could do no wrong. In reality they were low IQ fools playing James Bond as many men in secret agencies do. Exactly as depicted. Even if this was filmed with a serious tone this would be how they acted. The events themselves show this. Many historical movies try to stay clear of humor. But in ANY group of men humor is the main element and that was always the case historically. The show does fail at comedy even though plenty of scenes are quite funny. But the energy created from this is amazing. I really adore this style of filmmaking. It's not fully realistic, but it's very close. Reminds me a bit of Indiana Jones. Everything feels real yet it's played up for entertainment.

The character motivations are top notch. You clearly know what everyone wants and scenes build up themes to show us why everyone does what they do. It's absolutely amazing writing. Never on the nose, but as close as you can get to it even setting scenes up in an order that ties all motivations together into a thematic storyline. I like this so much. I would never recommend a movie over a clear documentary when trying to understand history. Until now that is. Now, could it be better? I have not watched some of the other TV shows and will get to them. And maybe they do other stuff well. But this comes with high energy perfect for the modern audience. And you can see how good writers can tie a show together unlike in movies where it's often the director trying to write too like in Wonder Woman 1984 that was a horrible mess. This is a product made by people who enjoy history for people who adore history. This is for you. This really did happen this way.

Now, for the history part. They do mention the JFK shooting quite a bit, setting up a conspiracy theory. In real life a photo from the JFK shooting showed cops escorting 3 vagabonds away from the crime scene and all 3 were said to be 3 of the main Watergate guys. This was a theory presented in big TV shows and papers. But it was later shown that this conspiracy was totally false. But this mini series never says this outright so it's fine. They just allude to it. There are also some misses. Like John Dean shown as a main man behind the conspiracy who then was the first to fold in return for no prison time. Then we see him get famous and rich here. Well, they all got rich when they sold their stories. This is a gigantic story and book deals earn such people millions. A story like this could earn them tens of millions today in book and TV show deals, easily. And media money would never ever run out. They only show John Dean getting there which is false. Also, the prosecutors found a loophole in the deal with him and he did go to prison. I get why he's the bad guy here as the TV show wanted someone evil for the story to make our guys look kinda good in comparison. But he was actually one of the more honorable guys in this story compared to the rest. Also, the plane crash in the series is great. But again they add conspiracy theories to it too. Overall it tries to create extra stories this way. But since we follow fools we know much of what they say is just not true hence I rate it historically accurate. There are also wrong scenes like when John Dean said it felt like Nixon was recording him. Here the prisoners watching him on TV all right away assume Nixon must be recording everything and freak out. This is bad logic. The comment was a short comment the prosecutors didn't ask into. A short comment in a very long testimony. Later with more people making deals it was revealed Nixon did record himself in the White House. But this small comment absolutely would not show this whatsoever. It would at most show Nixon recorded John Dean in that instance to create a fall guy, nothing else. And no one watching it would assume otherwise. Only a few people knew about the tapes. Actually, statements like that made John Dean go to prison because many statements were loose assumptions that were shown to be false as we learned the true facts from the recordings. But the TV show has to tighten up the story this way. It's a shame as the tapes only get like 2 min of screentime. The last episode rushes past the tape reveal and then never gets to book deals either. Kinda stays in this small space.

Took me a couple of episodes to appreciate the comedic take on a dark moment in history. When I got past that I just settled back and enjoyed it, and the pairing of Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux was just perfect to capture the buffoonery, but wannabe badassery, of Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy.

The soundtrack was particularly good. Especially the brilliant scene in episode 4 that segues from the Nixon rally (Mike Curb Congregation singing 'Nixon Now') to Dorothy Hunt becoming the unwilling but cool operator to clean up Howard's mess (Eddie Kendrick's 'Go on With Your Bad Self').

Just sit back and enjoy it!

All historians remember the times of the early 70's and the scandal plagued Nixon administration and anybody knows, you don't have to be a history student to know about Watergate as the incident has long been dissected all thru pop culture. This new "HBO" 5 part miniseries called "White House Plumbers" takes a dark hearted comedic like look at the guys who worked behind the scenes in a clumsy and crazy like way in the Watergate break in. Justin Theroux and Woody Harrelson have good on screen chemistry as Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy both former CIA and FBI agents respectively who's trying to help the president would ultimately break down the Nixon administration. Overall watching with the scenes and the clothing and hairstyles and dialogue it feels very early 70's as you watch the tag team duo turn clownish for the President. It's really funny with drama to watch how the break ins were botched, as dirty little tricks backfire. All of this really wasn't necessary still both Hunt and Liddy are determined Kool aid drinkers for Nixon, as you the viewer feel in company of a madmen like tag team. Overall pretty good historical parody of the 70's "Watergate" scandal that any political historical buff should watch.