Delitto alla Casa Bianca

MURDER AT 1600 came near the end of Wesley Snipes' theatrical career, before he went STV, and it is a decent-enough, Canadian-lensed thriller about the discovery of a young woman's brutally murdered body in the White House. Could the president's bully of a son (Tate Donovan) have killed her? Or are there more sinister forces at work here? For better or worse, the identity of the killer is made plain just past the halfway mark. But that doesn't mean you can't go along for the ride as shadowy assassins try to keep Snipes, as a D.C. detective, and Diane Lane, as a sympathetic Secret Service agent, from uncovering the truth. Snipes is in tip top shape here and is surrounded by several great character actors: Ronny Cox as the president, Harris Yulin as a hawkish general and Alan Alda as a presidential adviser. Daniel Benzali, who some of you might remember from a short-lived TV crime show some years ago, is on hand as a senior Secret Service agent and Dennis Miller has a small role as a fellow D.C. detective. While MURDER AT 1600 is not a first-rate action film -- for one thing, it is chock full of tired plot devices -- it is certainly watchable. And it beats anything Snipes has done since going STV.

Harlan Regis (Wesley Snipes) is a homicide cop, Nina Chance (Diane Lane) is a secret service agent; when a murdered victim is found in the white house they are left trying to piece together the real truth behind the murder, finding plenty of smoke and mirrors that are trying to disguise the truth.

Murder at 1600 is a good solid thriller, with an interesting premise and a strong cast, and even though its an enjoyable ride; it somehow seems to captivate less than it really should. Its still a good way to spend a few hours, but you'll find less here than initially meets the eye.

6/10

Wesley Snipes is his reliably charismatic self in this average crime thriller set around a murder in the White House. I feel like this had more potential, but unfortunately it settles for being being just okay. It has its moments, but is for the most part a pretty cliched and formulaic thriller.

Murder at 1600 is playing with a lot of familiar tropes from action-thrillers of the late 90s, and I don't mind one bit. This was the kind of stuff I loved when I was just getting into action films, and I still find such joy from watching them now. Sure, there is a formula at play here, and there are often things that don't make a ton of sense. In fact, more than once my logical brain would think "that's not how that would really happen," but I was able to get over the nonsense and enjoy the ride. It's fun to think of the different ways that an investigation might be influenced by federal agencies if there was a chance it could incriminate certain people in power. I like that they bring in an unbiased homicide detective to oversee the case, and we get to see how he is manipulated by the system. It gives a nice David-vs-Goliath feel to the case and makes the tension greater. They also put plenty of bureaucratic roadblocks in the way that help intensify the drama.

I love Wesley Snipes in this role, because I often forget he is so charming. Some of the character stuff they give him doesn't work well, and seems tacked on for no good reason, but I still like him as the lead. It's also hard to criticize anything that Diane Lane does in the supporting role. She plays a character who is tough as nails, one who holds her own with all the men around her, and never once does she feel like a lame damsel in distress that our hero has to save. The mystery in Murder at 1600 is not bad at all, because we are tricked into suspecting a number of different people. However, it's not exactly one where we are given all the important evidence up front so we can deduce the truth before it is revealed. But just like the far-fetched nature of certain things that happen in Murder at 1600, I simply don't care about that. I have a fun time watching it, and that's really all that matters to me.

Murder at 1600 is an OK thriller film. The cast all does a pretty good job, especially Diane lane and Wesley snipes. Alan Alda also does a good sufficient job at portraying his role. The dialogue between characters is alright at best, nothing great, but nothing terrible either. The film does at least keep you guessing for the majority of the runtime. The mystery kinda builds as it goes, which is always fun. The mystery isn't the greatest one ever to be in a movie, but it is interesting to see how it all comes and works together to see who is behind everything and why in the end. The action scenes (shooting, punching, etc.) were pretty fun of the mill action sequences. That's not bad necessarily, just would've liked to have seen something a little different from the usual. 6/10 overall.