White House Plumbers, review: rollicking Watergate farce that revels in political incompetence
The Watergate break-in and the ensuing unravelling of Richard Nixon’s Presidency had a profound impact on American politics – and an even bigger one on American film-making. Watergate popped the balloon of American exceptionalism: the idea that US politics was purer than anyone else’s. In so doing it spawned a new genre of conspiracy thriller – neurotic blockbusters such as The Parallax View and The Conversation.
Ironically, the real Watergate scandal was more free-wheeling farce than a dagger to the heart of democracy. The black-ops team that was spying on Nixon’s opponents hired a lock-pick who couldn’t pick locks and then installed faulty bugging devices. It was a landslide of incompetence, a bacchanalia of blunders. Perhaps that’s why Whitehouse Plumbers (Sky Atlantic), HBO’s lively retelling of the affair, gives off such contemporary vibes.
For all its rich period details, White House Plumbers feels like a thoroughly modern omnishambles. These delinquent Republican party operatives – the so-called “plumbers” – could have sprung from the imagination of satirist Armando Iannucci. It comes as little surprise that the mini-series is written by two veterans of Iannucci’s vice-presidential comedy Veep, Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck. The milieu – where politicians are inept, their flunkies even more so – is precisely the same.
There are echoes, too, of the more outlandish moments of Donald Trump’s presidency and even Partygate. Those similarities are winked at with gusto by a cast headed by Woody Harrelson as E Howard Hunt, leader of the Nixon campaign’s covert investigations unit.
Harrelson has fun as Hunt, a former CIA agent with unwavering devotion to the president. Justin Theroux matches him as his accomplice G Gordon Liddy. He’s a crank and Hitler enthusiast who relaxes by listening to a vinyl edition of the Nuremberg Rally.
White House Plumbers has a rollicking heist movie aura. It’s like a tragic twin of Ocean’s Eleven, where the goal isn’t to conquer Vegas but the White House. Everyone involved plays it broadly. They include Lena Headey as Hunt’s wife and Domhnall Gleeson as Nixon’s lawyer, John Dean. The absurdity is magnified by the Seventies trimmings, laid on like fondue at a dinner party. The cars are disco-era monstrosities, every interior scene is framed by 50 shades of brown.
If there’s a failure, it is to assume the viewer is up to speed on Vietnam-era American politics. Those fresh to the scandal will have to find their own way amid references to the “DNC” and the Bay of Pigs.
What is never in doubt is the incompetence of the plumbers. For instance, one of Liddy’s less feverish ideas involved hiring hippies to urinate at the hotel hosting the Democratic Party convention. The real surprise is that the authorities took so long to catch them. Watching their plans unravel is great fun. Perhaps too much of a lark, given Nixon’s tarnishing effect on the presidency. Americans may find it depressing – but for everyone else, it is a period hoot begging to be binged.
