"Know this.  Everytime I see your face, I want to rip your throat out."      

ABSOLUTE POWER (R) 

To catch a thief, to solve a murder?  Clint Eastwood's Absolute Power begins when master thief Luther Whitney (played by Eastwood himself) witnesses a murder while robbing the vault of a mansion.  The victim is the young wife of multi-millionnaire Walter Sullivan (the mansion-owner) and she's shot by the Secret Service in the heat of a rough-sex skirmish with the President of the United States (played by Gene Hackman).  Whitney escapes from the scene, but spends the rest of the film being pursued by the Secret Service (Scott Glenn and Dennis Haysbert), the D.C. police (Ed Harris), and Sullivan's goons (uh...just goons).  Whitney's a thief who's got some dangerous information, and a crucial piece of evidence, and now he's on the run.  As it turns out, about the only person not looking for Whitney is his estranged daughter Kate (Laura Linney), who wants nothing to do with her father.

Absolute Power comes in as an engaging, suspenseful, and entertaining thriller, but not because it has any grand special effects work or an extraordinarily intriguing plot (it doesn't).  Instead, what Absolute Power has is interesting characters, witty dialog, and enough old fashioned drama to keep at least this viewer happy.  The pace of this film is mellow--there's more talk here than action--and this slower pace allows for some classic dialog scenes ("Pacemaker my ass...").  Even with the somewhat overdone father-daughter subplot, and some odd plot turns towards the end, Absolute Power is still well worth recommending.  Eastwood/Hackman/Harris fans will not be disappointed!

Responses from cyberspace--thanks for writing, folks!

cus55@yahoo.com gives this movie  stars: "This film started out so well, with a robber witnessing the attempted rape of a woman by the President of the United States, and I thought it could have developed well with such a good cast. Yet it never developed for the rest of the two hours, and there were no twists or plot changes. The ending lingered and didn't have a conclusion. Yet, with such a good cast, some interesting colour and light effects throughout, and a potential beginning, it is a good movie." (7/3/98)

pmr@aol.com gives this film  stars: "How could you possibly recommend this movie. It started out so promising and then it finally became some kind of cartoon. Luther starts showing up in every scene: a policeman, a doctor, a limo driver; how ludicrous! And I'm a big fan of Eastwood. This was truly pathetic. Not an ounce of suspense either." (7/25/97)

Ludwig@ari.fed.us gives this film  stars: "Clint Eastwood was the best. The movie was very suspenseful." (2/19/97)