This is a 5-part miniseries that just started airing on HBO. Woody Harrelson, Justin Theroux as the leads.
I watched the first episode last night, and while I found it entertaining and at times quite funny, Liddy and Hunt MUST be caricatures - they seem so over-the-top. I know they were deeply flawed people, but sheesh. But I only say that out of doubt about the historical accuracy; I DO find it entertaining.
I’m not sure about Hunt, but G. Gordon Liddy was pretty astonishingly over-the-top and scenery-chewing IRL, from what I remember.
Here’s my comment from the Series thread:
We watched the first ep of The White House Plumbers on HBO. Very uneven. Justin Theroux is doing a very good Liddy, but Woody Harrelson looked liked he watched endless footage of Howard Hunt and was trying to do an impersonation rather than act a role. Very unnatural. Judy Greer and Lena Headey play their respective wives and were both very good. Domnall Gleeson (of all people) is playing John Dean. Not good casting. Physically he’s all wrong, and the way he’s playing it seems off somehow.
We’ll stick with it, hoping it gels. It’s one of those stories behind the story that deserves a good telling.
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As you can see I think Theroux is playing it pretty on target. Liddy was a loon.
I’m usually a fan of Harrelson, but I had similar thoughts. Seemed very forced and unnatural.
He’s a complete fucking clown.
Stranger
I loved him in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. That was a very nuanced, moving performance. This one is just off-putting. Forced is the right word.
He was a complete fucking clown. Now he’s a rotting fucking clown.
The worms won’t touch him and even Clostridium perfringens would find Liddy to be beneath them. Pond scum has sued the estate for defamation.
Stranger
Looking forward to it.
As a bit young to really remember it, but subject to endless references to Watergate in Mad magazine, my appetite for the period was whetted recently by Gaslit, with Julia Roberts, which I thoroughly recommend. And yes some of them were screaming nutbags.
Without trying to hijack the thread, what else covering the same Watergate / Nixon era US domestic politicl setting should I be checking out (I’ve done Frost-Nixon, For All Mankind, All the President’s Men and That 70’s Show, nd Nixon’s head in a jar in Futurama)?
The comedy Dick is great. It’s very silly, and while it isn’t at all concerned with trying to come up with deep and sophisticated political insights, it’s smarter than it seems on the surface. Plus Dan Hedaya makes a terrific Nixon.
Will the fact that I’m not all that familiar with the real-life events or people involved make me enjoy this less, or more?
I met him many years ago. This is what he’s like in person too.
Agree with everything here. Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams were perfect. The clothes and hair were also spot on. As someone who lived through the period, it captured the zeitgeist well enough while still being very funny with some serious topics gliding under the surface. Dan Hedaya did a nice comic turn while making you forget you weren’t actually watching Nixon.
As for The White House Plumbers we weren’t sure if we were going to stick with it (Woody Harrelson remembering to jut his chin just so got annoying in the first episode), but we watched the second episode, and it’s relaxing into its stride. Domnall Gleeson is still very wrong for John Dean (who I’ve seen a lot of over the years since Watergate so his manner of speech and body language are fresh in my mind), but I like how it’s going overall.
Kathleen Turner was an absolute hoot as Dita Beard. I remembered the name, but couldn’t remember why I remembered it, so that was a nice refresher. Loved the little comment re: Beard in the closing credits, too.
We’re going to stick with it.
Holy cow! I had no freaking idea that was her! Thanks; I’m eager to tell the Mrs. who is usually quite good at actor-spotting.
The voice was the real giveaway. She has some medical condition (MS?) where the medication makes her add a lot of weight – so much that’s she’s unrecognizable. Glad she’s still able to act. She’s great.
An aside…all the smoking is so over-the-top from today’s perspective. But that is also historically accurate.
Severe rheumatoid arthritis, according to her Wikipedia entry.
I missed it somehow. Can you quote it?
I can’t remember the exact wording, but it was a couple of sentences that ended with something like “Dita Beard definitely wrote that letter.”
Hunt was a nut job as well. Not so much a clown but ex-CIA agent and spy novelist who recruited a bunch of incompetents for Nixon to do all this clandestine stuff. And deeply involved in the planning of the failed Bay of Pigs operation during the Kennedy administration to overthrow Castro.
His wife Dorothy died in the crash of UA Flight 553 on 12/8/1972 with $10,000 cash on her person. She had apparently been involved in getting cash payments to the families of the Watergate burglars to prevent the burglars from cooperating with Watergate investigators. This fed rumors that Nixon or the CIA were responsible for the plane crash. There has never been any credible evidence that was in fact the case. Still, a weird coincidence.