Plot: What’s it about?
Imagine the unimaginable, someone brutally murdered at the White House and a Washington D.C. police detective (Wesley Snipes) given the assignment of solving the crime. With the complete cooperation of the Secret Service and the White House Staff…yes I’m being sarcastic…Harlan Regis (Snipes) is stonewalled at every turn. Slowly uncovering a motive he works a list of suspects that is fairly obvious, the President (Ronnie Cox…Total Recall), his womanizing son or maybe someone on his staff. Distracted by political and military turmoil in North Korea the President relies on his chief of staff, Alan Alda (The Four Seasons) to insulate the First Family from the press and the investigation. Regis finds an ally on the inside and uncovers a plot…unfortunately not a new one for the movie…that might change history.
I have enjoyed many of Wesley Snipes (U.S. Marshals…yes!!) movies but not this one. He does fine in his character but the script falls short in developing the drama/thriller movie that the director (Dwight Little) had hoped for. Alan Alda’s performance was a big let down especially in the end…I don’t think he’ll ever top Hawkeye Pierce (Mash). There were many opportunities for this movie to take off but they were all missed. The real life drama of the White House…bizarre as it maybe…is more entertaining than this release. The biggest let down is I bought the DVD.
Video: How does it look?
Rising above the lost cause of a poor script, both standard and matted widescreen format were fine. The attention to detail in creating the White House set was a plus and credit to the production staff should be extended.
Audio: How does it sound?
The AC-3 soundtrack worked well and there is no drop off of any dialogue through the center channel…a pet peeve of mine…but nothing extraordinary really stands out during the film.
Supplements: What are the extras?
After I finished watching the movie I checked out the extra features as usual and found them interesting. The director goes into much detail about his what he was trying to achieve for a final product but was so off the mark I don’t know what happened. The focus on the realistic set for the White House and how they achieved it was informative, along with some little known facts about the well-publicized residence made the extra features the best part of the DVD.
