Absolute Power
Director: Clint Eastwood
Year: 1997
Rating: 7.5
Few things get to me more emotionally than a
father and daughter rekindling their love for one another. Breaching the
years of distance. In a sense that is what the film's essence is but to get
there a number of people have to be killed, a conspiracy has to take place
and a master thief has to uncover the President of the USA as a swine. No,
it's not Donald Trump but it could have been. A terrifically suspenseful
film directed and starring Clint Eastwood. The man at 67 is was as cool as
ever.
Luther (Eastwood) does his homework. A lesson
to all you kids. That is what makes him a professional jewel thief who has
managed to stay out of jail for the past 40-years. He learned his lessons
from before. His time in jail and his chosen career separated him from both
his wife and daughter for decades. He loves his daughter and has looked after
her from a distance, but she wants nothing to do with him. He has the home
of the very wealthy Walter Sullivan (the wonderful E.G. Marshall in one of
his last roles) who is away in Barbados with the whole family mapped out.
He gets by the security system and finds the hidden room where all the goodies
are kept. Reams of jewels and stacks of hundred-dollar bills. The room has
a two-way mirror.
When a man and woman enter they begin having
rascally seductive flirtations - but then he slaps her - hard - she slaps
him harder. This isn't playful rough sex anymore. He likes to beat his women.
She struggles, he chokes her, she grabs a knife and has her head blown off
by two men. The man is the President of the USA (Gene Hackman). The men are
two Secret Service agents (Scott Glenn and Dennis Haysbert). The Chief of
Staff (Judy Davis) covers it all up but then in an unwise move Luther comes
out and takes the knife with the President's fingerprints on it as well as
her blood. They notice him and the hunt begins.
Ed Harris is the cop investigating the murder.
Nothing feels right. Why would she be strangled and shot. Why would one of
the bullets have been dug out of the wall but not her head. Nothing adds
up. He figures out that only one man could have broken into the house and
past security - Luther. He finds him and likes him. He likes his daughter
(Laura Linney) even more. Sullivan hires a professional killer. The Secret
Service are tasked with killing whoever it is. The police are being tracked
by them and leading them to Luther. But Luther has been at this game for
a long time and when they try and hurt his daughter the gloves come off.
Clint making us oldies look good. Nothing spectacular here - standard story-telling
but always good to see a President go down for his crimes.
