White House Plumbers

White House Plumbers was drily funny. Harrelson and Theroux had real chemistry and Hunt and Liddy’s growing bond in a confederacy of chaos was almost touching.

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.

We live, though, in uniquely incompetent times, and one of the shows that best captures this fact is a work of stylized history. White House Plumbers. .... As with traditional treatments of competence, the story delights in the details, turning Watergate into a step-by-step origin story.

White House Plumbers doesn’t feel pointless. The show’s ensemble cast is electric, and there’s a surprising amount of visual style to boot. Theroux and Harrelson are both stellar, but it’s the show’s delicate depiction of their characters’ real-life buffoonery that will jolt and delight both history-class dropouts and Watergate buffs alike.

“Lineage is very important to Gordon. Even more so than intelligence,” his subservient wife Fran (national treasure Judy Greer) says in one of the miniseries’ many cheeky lines of dialogue. ... The most interesting people in this story are the ones not central to it.

“White House Plumbers” likely won’t go down as the definitive Watergate tale (though a voice in Episode 4 sure seems like a nod toward one classic film), and its tone may be too indefinite to attract average TV fans. (It’s a historical drama steeped in absurd humor, just as it’s a satire absent “Veep’s” laugh-a-minute leanings.) Still, each element is made with such obvious enthusiasm for the time, place, and central story that it’s hard not to admire how the five-hour oddity adds up.

While sometimes White House Plumbers finds it hard to satirize what is already ridiculous at face value, it still gets off some big laughs and is bolstered by the performances of Harrelson and Theroux.

White House Plumbers thus tells a clear, coherent story about a famous event in American history, and at just five episodes there's not much bloat to complain of (though it probably could've been made as a movie in an earlier era). But those viewers looking to cackle as they did with Veep probably won't get more than an occasional chuckle.

It’s often fascinating viewing. However, Liddy’s Nazi fascination is just one symptom of a larger tonal problem, as the show oftentimes feels a bit glib in exploring the events that unfold, especially the ones with shocking life-and-death consequences.

Don't come for a fresh perspective or revisionist history or faithful recounting. Do come for the laughs. "Plumbers" probably gets that part right anyway. ... Amusing, inconsequential.

Plenty of good work here. But one is left with the feeling there’s a terrific two-hour movie buried beneath this uneven five-part series.

"White House Plumbers" is better before it gets to Watergate, with the first half depicting how Liddy and Hunt were bombastic but somehow good at their jobs. ... The “Can you believe this actually happened?” angle of "White House Plumbers" loses its edge when it gets to the aftermath of Watergate and underwhelms its supporting performances.

In parts, “White House Plumbers” delivers a tongue-in-cheek, amply resourced reenactment from a cast and crew of HBO regulars. As a whole, the show can’t quite mount a convincing case for another piece of Watergate media, though it has fun playing in the margins.

Watergate meets “Veep” in “White House Plumbers,” an at-times-surreal HBO limited series that occasionally feels a little too over the top, mostly because the real-life characters actually were. At its best, it’s a lightweight companion to “All the President’s Men,” presenting the flip side of all that planning and frantic covering up by what amounted to Keystone Criminals.

The combination of shocking real-life events and stellar performances should spark a strong reaction but will likely evoke nothing more than a shrug at best and slight annoyance at worst. It’s a stylish watch, sure. It’s just a shame it feels like that was chosen over substance.

White House Plumbers is a series of partially managed chaos, in which every actor in the impressive ensemble feels like they’re in a different show, and here’s the thing: The discordance is probably largely intentional and I’m confident it’s a valid interpretation of one way that Watergate probably felt from inside. It still makes for a frustrating and not wholly satisfying TV series.

It’s a show filled with talented, funny people, and they generally make smart decisions, especially Theroux, Gleeson, and Barinholtz. Harrelson ends up with more mixed results. ... However, a lot of the issues with Harrelson’s mediocre performance here go back to the writing, which is way too content to merely add a few jokes to the Wikipedia highlights of this story.

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. These on-screen dirty tricks just aren’t quite dirty enough.

We're in the company of a mad man and a madman, and I couldn't wait for it to end. [8 - 21 May 2023, p.6]

It’s not without funny moments, nor without interesting performances — even though leads Woody Harrelson, Justin Theroux, and Lena Headey all seem to be acting in different projects from one another — but on the whole feels like a long joke where the punchline gets repeated again and again.