Pretty much the only thing you can say about HBO's White House Plumbers is 'very nice try but no cigar'. Frankly, it's difficult to put your finger on what doesn't quite work and why, but something doesn't quite work.
It has great talent in the main roles, and it sticks closely to the - ridiculous and almost unbelievable - truth of how useless Hunt and Liddy's operation was on behalf of trying to get Richard Nixon re-elected as US president, but somehow it has some kind of ingredient X missing.
It might well be that White House Plumbers can't quite make up its mind what it is or what it wants to be: is it a satire? Is it just simple comedy? Is it a semi-factual attempt at portraying the cast of bozos hired to get President Nixon re-elected? It has elements of all those, but is too much of a mish-mash to be clear about any of it.
For example, one interesting theme which is alluded to and might have had traction is Howard Hunt's family life: in White House Plumbers he is shown as a guy who had a reasonable track record with the CIA, and though we are given the impression he did not leave the service on the best of terms he is no dumbo - Liddy is the nutjob and Hunt is forever reining him in.
Yet Hunt's home life adds a completely different dimension to the man: at home he is somehow cut down to size, by his eminently sensible wife, by his second oldest daughter and a long-haired son who are the kind of 'counter-culture' youngsters Hunt is battling.
In sum, Hunt might like to see himself as a man of consequence in the outside world, but at home not quite as much.
Yet, this theme is not developed as it might have been and which would have given the series more bottom: it is just one of several strands of which none ends up being the guiding theme.
Liddy is portrayed pretty much as a caricature, but how much of a cartoon figure was he in real life? Wed don't know. It other protagonists whose names we might all recall from the Watergate hearings - Johns Dean, Jeb Magruder, Chuck Colson, John Mitchell - also get a look in, but are oddly peripheral. This series is almost exclusively about Hunt and Liddy.
Overall, I have to say, White House Plumbers is entertaining enough but really little more than an opportunity lost. It does pick up after the first two episodes, but not enough to give it real legs. As I say, nice try but no cigar.
It has great talent in the main roles, and it sticks closely to the - ridiculous and almost unbelievable - truth of how useless Hunt and Liddy's operation was on behalf of trying to get Richard Nixon re-elected as US president, but somehow it has some kind of ingredient X missing.
It might well be that White House Plumbers can't quite make up its mind what it is or what it wants to be: is it a satire? Is it just simple comedy? Is it a semi-factual attempt at portraying the cast of bozos hired to get President Nixon re-elected? It has elements of all those, but is too much of a mish-mash to be clear about any of it.
For example, one interesting theme which is alluded to and might have had traction is Howard Hunt's family life: in White House Plumbers he is shown as a guy who had a reasonable track record with the CIA, and though we are given the impression he did not leave the service on the best of terms he is no dumbo - Liddy is the nutjob and Hunt is forever reining him in.
Yet Hunt's home life adds a completely different dimension to the man: at home he is somehow cut down to size, by his eminently sensible wife, by his second oldest daughter and a long-haired son who are the kind of 'counter-culture' youngsters Hunt is battling.
In sum, Hunt might like to see himself as a man of consequence in the outside world, but at home not quite as much.
Yet, this theme is not developed as it might have been and which would have given the series more bottom: it is just one of several strands of which none ends up being the guiding theme.
Liddy is portrayed pretty much as a caricature, but how much of a cartoon figure was he in real life? Wed don't know. It other protagonists whose names we might all recall from the Watergate hearings - Johns Dean, Jeb Magruder, Chuck Colson, John Mitchell - also get a look in, but are oddly peripheral. This series is almost exclusively about Hunt and Liddy.
Overall, I have to say, White House Plumbers is entertaining enough but really little more than an opportunity lost. It does pick up after the first two episodes, but not enough to give it real legs. As I say, nice try but no cigar.