Murder At 1600
(1997)
political thriller
directed
by : Dwight H.Little
featuring
: Wesley Snipes - Diane Lane - Daniel Benzali - Dennis Miller - Alan Alda
running
time : 1 hour 47 minutes
A police detective finds that looking into
a murder is anything but routine when one of the suspects is the President
of the United States. When the nude and bloodied corpse of an attractive
woman is found in a bathroom at the White House, Harlan Regis (Wesley Snipes),
a top detective with the Washington D.C. police force, is assigned to investigate.
However, Regis soon learns that the Secret Service, headed by Nick Spikings
(Daniel Benzali), is launching their own investigation, and they want Regis
to stay out of their way. While Alvin Jordan (Alan Alda), National Security
Advisor to President Jack Neil (Ronny Cox), intervenes in Regis' favor,
it becomes obvious that no one wants him poking his nose into a case in
which the suspects include both the President and his ill-tempered son
Kyle (Tate Donovan). Eventually, Regis finds an ally in Nina Chance (Diane
Lane), a member of the Secret Service's team, while the President tries
to fend off the investigation in the midst of an international crisis.
Comedian Dennis Miller also appears as Regis' partner Stengel.
Another in a string of bland films
starring the talented Snipes, this one is a standard murder mystery-thriller
set in Washington, an increasingly popular film setting for mayhem in the
1990s. The story, featuring a preposterous plot concerning the efforts
to cover up the murder of an attractive blonde in a White House bathroom,
is illogical, and, at the same time, so blandly predictable in its attempts
to cover itself with action, that only the slowest of audiences could remain
in suspense about the ending for long. Snipes does the best he can with
the blank character of the police detective, whose only distinguishing
characteristic seems to be an interest in constructing scale models of
Civil War battles. As for Miller, as Snipes' sidekick, and Lane, as a maverick
Secret Service agent, the less said the better. The film boasts an impressive
cast, including Alda, Benzali, Cox, Harris Yulin, and Diane Baker. Benzali,
as White House security chief, has some of the film's best moments.