Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: September 29, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews
Positive:
9
Mixed:
17
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenOct 18, 2017
Neeson’s Felt is deeply conflicted about being a turncoat. He’s also deeply flawed, a man who authorized illegal activities to track down members of the terrorist Weather Underground. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 18, 2017
Neeson stoic turn and the history we’re supposed to remember make “Mark Felt” work. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 4, 2017
Watched today, in light of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump administration, it has an extra intensity, as a possible preview of coming attractions. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comNell MinowSep 29, 2017
This film encourages us to explore who and what he was most loyal to. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliSep 29, 2017
The movie is more about the events that resulted in Felt becoming Deep Throat than his work in that role. Although not the definitive Watergate movie, it illustrates an aspect of the scandal that to this point has not been given ample attention by filmmakers. Read full review
70
Screen DailyAllan HunterSep 16, 2017
A solidly engrossing political drama, anchored by a commanding central performance from Liam Neeson. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonOct 19, 2017
Delivers a story that feels more like a footnote to history than a neglected chapter. But the cast is first-rate, notably Neeson in the title role. “Mark Felt” benefits mightily from his very particular set of acting skills. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 5, 2017
This is a paint-by-numbers procedural that expects the audience to know the history of Watergate, hits the ground running—but then feels more like a steady jog through the past than a fast-paced thriller. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 3, 2017
What the film, based on books by Felt and John D. O'Connor, lacks in narrative drive it strives to make up for with psychological probing. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeSep 16, 2017
It's a role very well suited to Liam Neeson, whose righteousness fills the screen and sometimes seems all the movie can offer. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushMatt SingerSep 16, 2017
The screenplay, written by director Peter Landesman and based on books by Felt and John D. O’Connor, does a fine job of condensing a sprawling conspiracy into a digestible feature, although it sometimes favors clarity over nuance and winds up enunciating important plot points in glaringly unnatural dialogue. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerSep 29, 2017
The movie is a straightforward nuts-and-bolts affair of no particular consequence, except for Neeson’s performance, which rightly does not resolve the question: Was Felt acting nobly or vengefully? Read full review
50
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonOct 12, 2017
The movie works reasonably well as a thriller but falls apart in other areas. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzOct 12, 2017
It doesn't actually explain much, throwing a bunch of names and seemingly arbitrary incidents at the screen in the hope that everyone watching the film happened to work at the Washington Post back in the day. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrOct 11, 2017
Mark Felt is a drama about an aggrieved control freak, which would be fine if director Landesman openly acknowledged it. He’s torn, though between offering a heroic celebration of the republic’s underappreciated savior and a more damning character portrait of a man who, for complex reasons, ended up doing the right thing. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn HornadayOct 5, 2017
As alternate history and a showcase for a fine Neeson characterization, “Mark Felt” offers an intriguing if incomplete view of a man who remains inscrutable, 40 years after the fact. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottSep 28, 2017
“Mark Felt” is a sharp portrait set against a blurry background, a history lesson that won’t help you on the test. It is possible to savor the crags and shadows of Mr. Neeson’s performance without quite grasping why Mr. Landesman thinks the story is worthy of such somber, serious and sustained attention. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubMike D'AngeloSep 27, 2017
Unfortunately, Felt’s actions, while historically important, don’t exactly make for riveting drama, especially compared to a classic about two dogged reporters. Nor does the film succeed in making Felt himself particularly interesting, except perhaps as a proxy—purely by coincidence, one assumes, given any movie’s lengthy gestation period—for another, recently terminated FBI honcho. Read full review
50
VoxAlissa WilkinsonSep 25, 2017
For its faults as a movie, the story is still compelling as a bit of history, and more so in the midst of a presidential administration that at times seems to be taking all the wrong lessons from Nixon. Read full review
50
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthSep 16, 2017
Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House couldn’t be more timely, yet those parallels never quite resonate. Read full review
50
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 16, 2017
"Mark Felt,” despite bits of bureaucratic cloak-and-dagger intrigue and a commanding lead performance by Liam Neeson, is a film that pings off relevance more than it feels charged with it. Read full review
40
EmpireIan FreerMar 26, 2018
Mark Felt is a lacklustre staging of a fascinating episode in recent US history. Despite Neeson’s strong presence, this is a deep throat that never finds its voice. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaOct 5, 2017
Unfortunately, the name is the only thing emboldened about this starchy biopic, a dry, talky affair that even Liam Neeson in full glower can’t bring to life. Read full review
40
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlOct 4, 2017
Curiously drab and airless, tinted to a distracting bluish miasma that suggests an advertisement for antidepressants, Peter Landesman’s Mark Felt is the wrong movie at the right time. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 28, 2017
Not every historical drama has to be a masterpiece of verisimilitude, but in a movie about intelligence professionals whose very job is to analyze every detail and sniff out damning discrepancies, instances of visual and narrative sloppiness stand out all the more glaringly. Read full review
40
The GuardianJordan HoffmanSep 16, 2017
It’s surprising that a film about Deep Throat could be such an anticlimax. Read full review
38
New York PostSara StewartSep 28, 2017
Given its obvious parallels with modern-day events, it’s a shame Felt’s ensuing story is so wanly told. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineDerek SmithSep 26, 2017
Mark Felt is a kind of hagiography, and it leans toward whitewashing its subject's legacy, which extends even to the man's illegal break-ins and wire-tapping of the leftist activist group the Weather Underground. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovOct 18, 2017
A roaring snooze that should by all rights be edge-of-your-seat, compelling cinema, Mark Felt lives and dies by Landesman’s laborious script, which revels in the minutiae of the scandal without ever managing an iota of passion. Read full review
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