It's 1974. White House transcriptionist -- someone who takes recordings and converts them into written records -- Willa Fitzgerald has the missing tape recording of Nixon that everyone is hot for. She meets up with reporter John Magaro and they go to a motel in Maryland to listen to the tapes, but his reel-to-reel player is broken. However, Vondie Curtis-Hall and Catherine Curtain at the cabin next to theirs have been listening to a tape of bossa nova non-stop.

It plays more like an extended anecdote than a story, so it's good they have some talent in place that can play it for comedy, like Richard Kind as the one-eyed motel owner, and Alexander Woodbury as a fisherman.

It's certainly an entertaining satire, if not particularly deep. Still, who knew that Bruce Campbell could do such a good Nixon impersonation?

My alphabetical run through Sky Movies is updated by the arrival of another new film with numbers in the title. This one is a . . . Comedy drama, I guess . . . With apparently many references to the Watergate scandal which, I have to admit, I only know the bare minimum about.

Connie (Willa Fitzgerald) is a white house stenographer who accidentally discovers a recording of Nixon (Bruce Campbell) and his aides listening to and discussing the missing 18 1/2 minutes from the Watergate tapes. She meets journalist Paul (John Magaro) and they decide to head to a waterfront motel complex to listen to the tape. Posing as husband and wife, the pair meet some interesting characters at the venue, and are forced to turn to another couple for help, when their reel to reel tape player doesn't work.

I like the pairing of Fitzgerald and Magaro and I thought they had good chemistry together. Whilst they're getting to play really broad characters, I liked Vondie Curtis-Hall and Catherine Curtin as the married couple that the central pair approach too. I also liked that there were a lot of subtler moments in the film, plot hidden in dialogue and there was a genuine surprise at the end that I didn't see coming.

I really didn't like the film though. I think movies can go awry for any number of reasons, budgetary, application, conflict on set. Here though, I feel like this is exactly the movie that Dan Mirvish wants it to be. It is quirky and off beat and they aren't things that I usually dislike, but it didn't feel in service of anything here. There are ideas in the second half of the film that take it too far outside of the realms of reality and that eccentric approach to the story feels forced. Quirk for quirks sake, rather than trying to find an original take.

Happy to read that several reviewers found more in this than I did, but for me it gave me a sword and I stuck it in, I'm not twisting it with relish though.

Interesting "what if" take on the 18 1/2 minutes missing from Nixon's Watergate tape.

Nixon and Al Haig have been recorded by a sound-activated taping system installed in the Oval Office. They are recorded as they listen to the complete, entire Watergate tapes. This is the premise of the movie.

An accidental recording of "THE" recording is created and no one knows it exists.

Connie, a White House transcriber, does her job and listens to this tape to transcribe, as she listens and types the contents of what she hears on the recording, she realizes she has the missing 18 1/2 minutes being recorded as Nixon and Al Haig listen to it and make comments about what they hear.

Connie calls a respected newspaper journalist and asks to meet with him so he can listen to the recording and write a story.

Many odd people become involved as the movie progresses and as the movie concludes, it's revealed some people are not who they claim to be and a huge conspiracy is revealed.

The way the movie unfolds, especially after watching, "White House Plumbers," "Gaslit," "All the Presidents Men," and knowing how corrupt many politicians and billionaires are, it's not impossible to suspend belief while watching 18 1/2 Minutes.