Overlooked Movies: Dick

You thought you knew all about the Watergate scandal because you'd seen or read All the President's Men, right?  Well, you were wrong.  The true story is revealed in Dick, and it's a lot wilder than the "official" one.

Let's start with Deep Throat.  Some old guy with inside info?  Nope.  Two teenage girls, Arlene and Betsy, played by Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst (whose performance as the dim but stabby wife in Fargo I'm currently enjoying).  As it turns out, they also save the world from nuclear destruction, just by baking cookies with a secret ingredient.  Not to mention having other amusing and exciting adventures, all because they wanted to mail a fan letter to Bobby Sherman.  (Handy link provided for younger readers.)

Woodward and Bernstein, two top professional reporters?  Nope.  They were pretty much two doofuses (Will Ferrell and Will McCulloch) who don't much like each other and who are a lot more lucky than good.

And that's the way it goes pretty much down the line.  Kissinger, Haldeman, Liddy, and John Dean all come along, and we're shown their true selves.

The exception is Richard Nixon (Dan Heydaya in a superb performance), who turns out to be exactly like you thought he was.  Arlene crushes hard on him until she finds out the truth about him, that he's a potty- mouth and that he isn't a nice man.

Betsy and Arlene find out all this stuff because they're witnesses to the Watergate break-in, and through a series of events they become Nixon's dog walkers, which allows them to witness many other things.

I found this movie hilarious.  Maybe now, 15 or so years later, more and more people won't remember Watergate or Nixon or any of the rest of it, and they might not find the movie as funny as I did.  But I think it's great.

Personal note:  Judy and I saw this in the theater, and the only two other people in the audience were two girls about the age of Betsy and Arlene.  Maybe they'd come because they thought the movie would be another teen comedy.  They obviously didn't get it at all, and about ten minutes before the movie was over, they pulled out their phones and called their friends, maybe to warn them away.  It's one of the very few times I've gotten up and spoken to people in a theater and asked them to be quiet.  They were amazed that I'd be so rude.

Bonus:  Nine things you really never knew about Dick.