Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House

Another drab and lumpy fact-based drama from writer-director Peter Landesman (Concussion), this time about the veteran FBI agent who leaked Watergate information to the press, famously becoming known as Deep Throat. Liam Neeson sleepwalks through his starring role as Felt, a loyal and by-the-book agent passed over for the top job when J. Edgar Hoover dies. That puts him at odds with his new boss, a puppet for the Nixon White House, and Felt gets driven to leaking when the executive branch starts taking control of the Watergate investigation. Meanwhile, Felt deals with multiple crises at home, including a depressed wife (Diane Lane, utterly wasted) and a missing daughter he fears might be involved with the Weather Underground. Aside from the obvious hot-button historical parallels of a tyrant president compromising national security to hide his election crimes, Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House has nothing to offer. D.B.