Vintage

For a plot involving something as dramatic as a murder at the White House, Murder at 1600 is surprisingly mediocre, even with that built in interest factor. Luckily, the movie never really sinks to something really bad, but it never really takes off like Air Force one either. Somewhere on the continuum of our President getting blown by an intern at the Oval office and listening to a Congressional filibuster on anything, this movie falls in that broad middle. Here is what happens.

In White House restroom, a janitor finds secretary Carla Town (Mary Moore) dead. Washington D.C. homicide Detective Harlan Regis (Wesley Snipes) is put on the case. At the White House, Regis is introduced to Secret Service chief Nick Spikings (Daniel Benzali), national security advisor Alvin Jordan (Alan Alda), and Secret Service agent Nina Chance (Diane Lane). Spikings assigns Nina to keep an eye on Regis, for reasons that exist to give Snipes a love interest.

It has been pointed out the movie has a homicide detective from the Washington D.C. PD investigating a murder at the White House, which can’t really happen. Supposedly. any crime committed on U.S. federal property would be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not the D.C. police. But, who cares – it makes for interesting story.

What had me worried in the earlier part of the flick is when Snipes takes Lane home to see his bad, so he can get changed. How weird is that, to simply drive a co-investigator around in a car and when she asks where you are going you say, “… back to my place to get changed.” I just thought it was weird.

Naturally, Harlan has to have some kind of softer side so we can warm up to him right? How about a football field sized model of a civil war re-enhancement in his house! Yes, it was at this point I thought this movie would nose dive in a hurry.

First of all, how the hell would he have had time to build such a freaking model? This sort of thing seemed totally out of place for a head of homicide in the world’s busiest city for just that thing. But, nay, he just happens to love to build football sized models of civil war battlefields.

What do you know, later in the film his odd hobby gave him insight into the underground tunnels that lead to the white house. I am not saying knowledge of the Civil war is bizarre; it seems bizarre Wesley Snipes was an expert at it playing a homicide detective.

But, therein there were some decent moments to this film. All in all, it was satisfactorily acted in nearly every role. I fault the move for making the head of security so obviously evil and by definition so obviously not the guy that really did it.

I won’t give that away, even though we don’t have a no spoiler zone. Nonetheless, some other good moments were the Secretary of State chastising the President as a loser. I wonder if that ever happened before for real—or if it should.

The action in the movie is serviceable. Snipes was good. Lane was more than adequate. Alan Alda was above average as the Secretary. This movie is about as a middle of the road as they come.