Sony Pictures Classics has released the first trailer forMark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House. Directed byPeter Landesman(Concussion), the film starsLiam Neesonas FBI agent Mark Felt, who would become “Deep Throat”, the anonymous whistleblower who exposed the Watergate scandal in a series of discussions with Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The film chronicles Felt’s discovery of the Watergate scandal and subsequent decision to leak information to the Post as Richard Nixon’s White House administration began attempting to tamper with the FBI’s investigation.
The first thing that’s noticeable about this trailer is that the film isincrediblytimely, almost to the point of comedy. The movie was announced back in 2006 and started shooting in May 2016, before the election ofDonald Trumpand Trump’s subsequent troubles with the FBI, so before you go lambasting this as “Hollywood propaganda,” know it was conceived and shot before all of theJames Comeybusiness went down.
Felt’s story is a compelling one, and I’m curious to see how Landesman frames it. The guy certainly has experience with historical dramas likeConcussionand theJFKassassination filmParkland, so it’ll be interesting to see what he’s put together here.
Watch theMark Felttrailer below. The film also starsDiane Lane,Tony Goldwyn,Josh Lucas,Michael C. Hall,Maika Monroe,Kate Walsh, andTom Sizemore.Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White Housewill have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month and opens in theaters on September 29th.
Here’s the official synopsis forMark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House:
Mark Felt - The Man Who Brought Down the White House centers on “Deep Throat”, the pseudonym given to the notorious whistleblower for one of the greatest scandals of all time, Watergate. The true identity of the secret informant remained a mystery and source of much public curiosity and speculation for more than 30 years. That is until, in 2005, special agent Mark Felt shockingly revealed himself as the tipster. This unbelievable true story chronicles the personal and professional life of the brilliant and uncompromising Felt, who risked and ultimately sacrificed everything – his family, his career, his freedom – in the name of justice.
