# Absolute Power (1997)

### reviewed by
James Brundage

    Absolute Power (1997, R)

Produced and Directed by Clint Eastwood.

    Written by William Goldman

Starring Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, and Laura Linney

    As Reviewed by James Brundage

Let me start off saying two things to two people. Number one, to William Goldman: I'm not saying this because I'm supporting or defending Clinton (which I'm NOT), but do please stop writing political thrillers. Number two, to Ed Harris: well, at least it was better than Stepmom.

Number three actually would have gone to Clint Eastwood: pleas stop starring, producing, and directing your own movies but he obviously got the point as nary a frame of the intriguing Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil shows him.

That said, let's go on to my review of Absolute Power, which is twenty notches above Murder at 1600, which I saw being filmed, but a hundred notches below Six Days in May, In the Line of Fire, or about any other political thriller you can name.

Absolute Power is pleasantly mediocre. You don't expect much, and you don't get much. It is yet another film following the Clinton chic of films, books, etc which show our nations President as someone who's able to get laid, in contrast to someone who couldn't get it up without Viagra (if we had Dole, folks, NONE of this crap would be happening). Absolute Power is the story of a President who has sex with a girl and, whoops, ends up killing her. Unlike Murder at 1600, which shows the girl being done right in the opening credits, Absolute Power waits a nice ten to fifteen minutes before getting down to business.

When it gets down to business, Luther (Clint Eastwood ) is breaking into an estate to steal millions. His perfect heist is interrupted by something unplanned: the president is going to have sex with the billionaires wife. Things get a little rough, one thing leads to another, and the girl ends up shot by secret service agents seconds before she's going to give President Al (Gene Hackman) a Lorraina Bobbit.

Of course, since we live in the wonderful democracy where everyone is free to make a dumbly plotted and cliche film as they want, the Chief of Staff decides its for the best if the girl stumbled upon a burglary and was shot. Forget for a second that her dress has been ripped, the President's fingerprints are all over her, and a secret service agent (Scott Glenn) made sure he hadn't done a Bill Clinton.

Now, going out of the character of a jewel thief who just witnessed a murder from a secret room and stole $5,000,000 worth of material, Clint grows a heart, picks up the piece of evidence left behind, and leaves. Of course secret service agents chase him. Of course he runs into a cop (Ed Harris) who believes him because the facts don't add up, and of course his daughter (Laura Linney) grows closer to the old man through a complicated process of stocking her fridge at just the right time and saving her life.

The only really redeeming aspects to the film, the saving graces against terrible performances by the ensemble cast and William Goldman's piss-poor script is the steely direction by Clint Eastwood. Mixing in just the right amount of light, the right tone and time of the music and working with such a terrible script, Clint Eastwood does directing up to par with A Perfect World and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. He's as good of a director as he always was, and that alone makes the film enjoyable. He gives as much that he can to a movie with such a bad script, as do the actors. This will be on the movie's gravestone: "They tried, they really tried".

Now, from all of this, you'd expect that I'm telling you to skip Absolute Power. I'm not. I'm just saying don't drive to rent it. Should Absolute Power be on TMC or ShowTime, like it was for me, go ahead and watch it. You'll have fun. If you're a Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry jag, see it. It's just up in the air.

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