Film Review
'Absolute Power' turns out to be an absolute disaster
By Scott FoundasFilm Editor
The oft-alleged
corruptible force of absolute power seems to have infected and overcome the
mighty Clint Eastwood in his triple-threat role as producer, director and
star on his latest film project. Aptly titled, "Absolute Power" is a
dismal, would-be action-thriller with no action, few thrills and the most
unabashed camera-mugging this side of the Sears Portrait Studio.In this lethargic opus,
Eastwood is Luther Whitney, a master jewel thief who finds himself fully
embroiled in a government conspiracy when he turns out to be the only
witness to the murder of a woman who was having an affair with the
President of the United States (Gene Hackman). Of course, there's the issue
of Luther's credibility, as he was burglarizing the woman's home at the
time of the murder. More pressing for Eastwood and company, however, should
be the issue of whether the audience buys into the central premise of the
President's Secret Service agents committing the murder while his
chief-of-staff spearheads the cover-up. It's not a completely
ludicrous set-up in theory, but one of the reasons it's so tough to swallow
in Eastwood's film is that its execution is so haphazard and melodramatic
that we never for one moment believe any of the characters are in any real
danger. Maybe that's because we don't for one moment believe any of the
characters are real. Suffice it to say that anyone who can't guess Hackman
will be President well before the film "reveals" it is probably too young
to be admitted to the film in the first place.For the first time in a
long time, the versatile Eastwood seems uncomfortable and feels miscast in
the lead role, stuck in a self-imposed limbo between taking the character
of Luther seriously and trying to play him for buffoonish laughs as a sort
of bumbling old veteran. Watching Eastwood push Luther's every quick
reaction and double-take beyond its effectiveness leads one to wonder if
"Absolute Power" weren't in fact conceived along the lines of "Grumpy Old
Thieves." As for the usually great Judy Davis, the term "hammy" seems a
mild way of describing the reckless abandon of her scenery-chewing antics,
while the rest of the top-flight cast has little to do and alternately
seems bored and undirected.Then, as if cued in from
another movie taking place in a parallel reality, Ed Harris takes center
stage as the detective investigating Luther's connection to the murder and
gradually falling in love with Luther's estranged daughter (Laura Linney of
"Primal Fear," again playing a high-powered public prosecutor). When all is
finally said and done, Harris and Linney probably deliver the two most
believable performances in "Absolute Power," but Eastwood can never make
this sub-plot seem like anything more than erroneous time-filler.As a director, Eastwood has
filled his rsum with an array of daring film westerns, biographies, and
interior, meditative dramas that have marked him as one of the most savvy
and unpredictable craftsmen currently at work in the American cinema. So,
on the heels of the exceptional streak of "Bird," "White Hunter, Black
Heart," "A Perfect World" and "The Bridges of Madison County," "Absolute
Power" comes an especially great disappointment. Eastwood's languid,
contemplative pacing is completely incongruous to a film that so obviously
calls for tension and excitement. The entire vehicle is
largely designed as Eastwood's crack at directing his own "In the Line of
Fire," but it can never match Wolfgang Petersen's level of nail-biting
nervousness. Beyond that, those few sequences are botched by a seemingly
random approach to composition and editing. It's very hard to believe that
"Absolute Power" is the work of Eastwood's top-notch technical team of
editor Joel Cox, director of photography Jack Green and composer Lennie
Niehaus, since the overall production is so flat-out bad and cheap-looking.
Moreover, and perhaps most
distressing, "Absolute Power" is a testament to the rapidly declining
quality of Hollywood screenwriting, despite the fact that it was penned by
(and solely credited to) William Goldman, a one-time great of American
screenwriting who was key to the liberated American cinema of the late
1960s and early 1970s. "Absolute Power," though, is a bonafide hack job,
marked by wall-to-wall ludicrous dialogue, lacking any driving action to
propel the narrative or interest the viewer, and ranking alongside
"Maverick" and "Year of the Comet" as another road sign marking the rapid
decline of Goldman's career. D"Absolute Power" opens Friday nationwide.