White House Plumbers; Gender Wars; The Blackouts Of ’74

“The Watergate scandal is not exactly new territory for screenwriters. So White House Plumbers needed to be pretty good to justify its existence. Thankfully, it was. Woody Harrelson and Justin Theroux had real chemistry and Hunt and Liddy’s growing bond in a confederacy of chaos was almost touching.”
Neil Armstrong, The i

“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.”
Ed Power, The Telegraph

“It has a slick elegance to it, but it never quite feels as if it pulls the many elements together successfully. In the end, I found that White House Plumbers didn’t satisfy. It seems to lack a clear identity or a clear sense of what it is. It looks the part, and the talent involved is undeniable, but somehow the chemistry is off and the parts don’t fit together.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“Laboured, repetitive and devoid of clever dialogue, it treats the central figures as cartoon characters. Woody Harrelson plays E. Howard Hunt like Marlon Brando, with his lower jaw protruding and his speech muffled. Harrelson on form can be mesmerising, as he showed in True Detective. Here, he’s just hamming it.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Harrelson and Theroux are terrific company, but White House Plumbers is not deadly serious. It is a farce that recognises the Watergate scandal as a political tragedy that has acquired the requisite historical distance to turn it into amiable, if not electric, comedy. It has the same screwball energy as Adam McKay’s Vice, albeit without the 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians.”
Nick Hilton, The Independent

“White House Plumbers paints the actions of the Nixon administration’s henchmen as bungling farce. Sort of, because by the end, the spiralling insanity of the cover-up and the whole toppling house of cards has become very serious. It feels a bit all over the place.”
James Jackson, The Times

“Gender Wars can hardly be criticised for spending most of its hour having people set out their stalls. But it does mean that moments that cry out for further questioning or unpacking go unquestioned and unpacked. By the end,  I suspect the average viewer will be left with even more questions.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Much of the archive footage in this 90-minute retrospective was being shown for the first time in decades. It included a wonderful clip of Val Singleton and Peter Purves, showing us on Blue Peter how to stay warm during the cost-of-living crisis, by slipping sheets of newspaper between bed blankets. Just think of the outcry now if a BBC children’s programme advised that.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail