"Absolute Power" is an excellent movie to watch if you are looking for something undemanding and entertaining. The picture is made well and by the end, everything is wrapped up very nicely. If, on the other hand, you want a realistic film....well you might just wanna look further.

Luther (Clint Eastwood) is a career super-thief...with amazing skills and daring as well as a man who's never been caught. However, when he breaks into a rich man's home and raids the guy's hidden vault, things go from fantastic to horrible in a matter of no time. The hidden room is chock full of money and jewels...and Luther is making a big haul. But in the midst of doing this, some folks arrive home unexpectedly. The wife did NOT go overseas with her husband and instead is having a clandestine rendezvous with another man...a violent man who soon begins slapping her around and verbally abusing her. Then, just as she breaks away from the beast and is about to stab him, shots ring out....Secret Servicemen dispatch the woman about to kill the President. Yes, the President of the US is a violent perv...and Luther saw the woman murdered before his very eyes. Fortunately no one saw him in the hidden room and Luther leaves...absconding with some of the evidence just in case he needs it.

Now the idea of a President being a perverted, corrupt piece of crap isn't why I said that the film is unrealistic...I COULD buy that. But for Luther to fight the President AND Secret Service and do so well against them...well, that seems extremely unrealistic. Just turn off your brain as you watch...it IS a good film provided you stop your brain from thinking out the plot too much.

Clint Eastwood directs and stars in Absolute Power, a film based on a book about a philandering president that came out in 1997. Now I wonder just who they could have had in mind?

Gene Hackman who played so well against Eastwood in The Unforgiven is the president who has made a carefully arranged rendezvous with Melora Hardin, the trophy wife of a very powerful and elderly Washington insider, E.G. Marshall. When the sex starts to get rough because the two are quite inebriated, the noise attracts secret service bodyguards Scott Glenn and Dennis Haysbert. They shoot Hardin down as she's about to stab Hackman with a letter opener. What nobody knows is that Eastwood is hiding in a vault in the bedroom.

Clint's a professional burglar who decided that night to pick that expensive townhouse to rob. After that the power of the federal government comes down on him because he can topple that selfsame government.

Absolute Power is a nicely paced political/crime thriller combining those two genres nicely for most of the film. But an incredibly muddled ending will leave you completely in the dark as to what exactly has happened or what the future will be.

Other performances of note are Laura Linney as Clint's estranged daughter who is of all things, a junior prosecuting attorney, Ed Harris as the tough homicide cop from the DC police force who's good on his job, but slow to realize the implications of what he's investigating. But best of all is Judy Davis as the hard as nails presidential chief of staff who tries for a cover-up and would have succeeded, but for Clint's unplanned presence at the crime scene.

When Absolute Power came out no one could have missed the illusions to the Clintons. The first lady is never seen, she's on a mission to Africa while all the action takes place. But E.G. Marshall is very suggestive of Averill Harriman who was gone eleven years at that time, but who held that kind of influence within the Democratic party. He also had a much younger wife, but not quite the difference in ages between Marshall and Hardin. This film also marked the farewell big screen performance of E.G. Marshall. Marshall's scene with Eastwood in the limousine is the best in the film.

I can't comment on how Daniel Baldacci's novel ended from which this film was adapted, but Clint should have opted for a much clearer ending. Then again such things even after Watergate are horrible to contemplate.

Luther Whitney (Clint Eastwood) is a master burglar. He breaks into the mansion of President's friend tycoon Walter Sullivan (E.G. Marshall). From behind a two-way mirror, he sees President Allen Richmond (Gene Hackman) having sex with Walter's wife Christy. It gets rough. Secret Service Agents Bill Burton (Scott Glenn) and Tim Collin (Dennis Haysbert) kill her. Chief of Staff Gloria Russell (Judy Davis) tries to cover up the incident by staging a burglary. Luther manages to steal an incriminating piece of evidence. His daughter Kate Whitney (Laura Linney) is his only family. Police detectives Seth Frank (Ed Harris) is investigating the case.

The opening could not be any slower. Eastwood is feeling the weight of that AARP membership card. The tension never gets too high. There's a couple of good scenes but they are few and far between. The other problem is that much of this movie doesn't make sense. Somebody makes an off chance comment that the burglar cleaned up. It would make sense for the police to check the vacuum cleaner. Luther tells Kate that the President is trying to kill him. It would make sense for her to seek protection that a prosecutor presumably has access to. Why would he pass a note in the White House? It would make sense for him to lay low and his note adds nothing anyways. How does an old man stage a presidential suicide by knife? It would make sense for anybody with a brain to question its validity. This slow thriller has limited believability.