The address of The White House - 1600 Pensylvania Avenue - provides the title - Murder at 1600 - for a low-rent thriller which is vastly inferior to Clint Eastwood`s somewhat similar Absolute Power. This is yet another film in which the US leader plays a crucial role: President Jack Neil, played by Ronny Cox, an actor who often appears as very nasty villains, is one of the suspects when a young woman is found murdered in the White House. Washington DC cop Harlan Regis, Wesley Snipes, finds his investigation hampered by the President`s men, though one of the White House women, Nina Chance, Diane Lane, is more sympathetic... This is a preposterous, over-inflated and quite unsuspenseful film, filled with red herrings and unconvincing characterisations. Even the usually reliable Alan Alda seems out of his depth as the administration`s National Security Advisor. But it`s interesting to speculate why, during Bill Clinton`s Presidency, so many films have involved so centrally, and sometimes so unsympathetically, the occupants of the White House. In this case, director Dwight Little dishes out only the most tired cliches.
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