Absolute Power (1997)

Clint Eastwood plays a geriatric cat burglar who robs a toney DC mansion only to get boxed in by the returning inhabitants – but wait; as he hides within the spacious secret vault he watches the fun through a two way mirror with an easy chair thoughtfully provided at some earlier time by the master of the house. When his stunned eyes come back into his head from their place on the ground where they fell out, he realizes it is not the tenants, but only the lady of the house, returning with her beau, the President of the United States, William Jefferso - um, that is, Arthur J. Richmond (Gene Hackman).

As the surprised Clint watches he sees a little rough sex unwind with the lady not liking Slick Artie's slap and tickle technique one little bit. In fact, she seizes a handy letter opener and proceeds to inflict a little reciprocal hurt on the POTUS, with the result that the Secret Service team, formerly of the Keystone Kops, burst in and fill her full of 9mm special Treasury loads, splattering brain, hair, and blood all over the sumptuous furnishings.

Unlike the gangs imagined by Quentin Tarantino, the Secret Service does not have a "cleaner" on staff, so the agents are left to tidy up the crime scene themselves and make it look like a murder, under the eagle eye of the Pres's Chief of Staff, played by a shrill Judy Davis. They just get back to their car when they realize they forgot the letter opener, the only piece of evidence that could link the POTUS. Rushing back in, they are only a couple steps behind Clint, who has seized the evidence and skedaddled, driving away in his big GMC Yukon.

This opening is among the best scenes in the two hour running time, however even as decent as it is, it is derivative and miscast with Eastwood a stunning retread of his earlier Eiger Sanction thief character and hammy Gene Hackman a modestly refurbished take on the President from No Way Out.

A further detriment is Clint behind the camera as director and he paces it all wrong so the action parts plod and the talky parts put you into a catatonic state. Another fault of Eastwood's is he never knows when to leave well enough alone and always keeps about 20 minutes too much film in any of his latter efforts. He needs to turn his work over to a talented and ruthless editor and then leave if he wants to make better films.

An example of bloat is the race to escape from the returning Secret Service agents. The scene is intercut and shows the guys realizing they forgot the letter opener, running upstairs while Clint grabs the knife, gets his rappelling gear ready, goes out the window, legs it towards the woods, then the guys chase him endlessly until he finally gets in his SUV and peels away. The whole sequence takes several l-o-n-g minutes and could more effectively have been cut down to a few pertinent seconds and still gotten the point across. Most of the sequences are self-indulgently bloated like this.

There are lots of little quirky scenes that really have no place and do not contribute to the credibility of Absolute Power, such as showing Clint disarm a highly sophisticated alarm system that only six people in the USA can defeat and then showing him repeatedly getting VHS tapes from the corner bar because he is too lame to program his VCR to record the football game.

The casting is blue ribbon with Ed Harris as the DC Police Detective, and Scott Glenn as the Secret Service agent, with Judy Davis, Gene Hackman, Laura Linney, and of course Clint Eastwood as the dapper cat burglar. It's just that you've seen the story before and the execution by Eastwood as director leaves something to be desired.

The Warner Bros DVD is presented in color, in 2.35:1 theatrical mode, and runs a lengthy 121 minutes. The movie is useful as it can double as a sleeping pill.

Only recommended for Clint Eastwood completists.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV