Dark Power

Sometimes, producers of porn branch out and make a sci-fi, action, or crime film. And sometimes the people who make soaps will make a TV movie. This is one of those. And it isn't too bad. The lovemaking scene was so silly, that is was laughable. But the drama and the action was acceptable. In some ways it was like the TV series, Gotham. And that's not bad.

Dark Power is a film about a conspiratorial group like the Illuminati who have members in high places and low places and call on them when needed. When the powers that be decide they want to control an unnamed big city Mayor Kevin Dobson is assassinated right in city hall where he and a lame brain security guard are burning the midnight oil. It's the only time an assassination shown in a movie ever got laughs from me.

Kristianna Loken and Sean Patrick Flannery are the two FBI agents assigned to the case and they never develop any chemistry. The only emotion shown on the screen is sheer boredom.

Just why this secret cult/organization wants this city under its control is never really explained. Everybody involved with this one has done better work.

I wanted to like this movie. I watched it till the end. I found it to be extremely lacking in continuity. Even the ending left me with a what the heck look on my face.

This movie clearly tried too hard to surprise the audience and by the end none of those surprises made any sense.

Where was the darkness? Where was the power? What was the big mystery? All those questions are pretty much answered by the time the second assassination takes place... and at that moment you find yourself HOPING that it isn't so, that there HAS to be more.

I give it a 4 out of 10 simply because Kristanna Loken is in it.

DARK POWER is a political thriller with very few actual thrills. After the Mayor of Boston is assassinated, Special Agents John Archer (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Mila Driver (Kristanna Loken) are called in to get to the bottom of things. They soon uncover a secret cabal of illuminati-types that are up to no good, as more mayoral candidates are picked off like arcade targets.

The main problem with this movie is its jumpy, incoherent story line. Seemingly important events occur only to lead nowhere. Silly subplots -"John, I'm your father!"- are introduced for no intelligent reason. Then, the finale just sort of happens, shots are fired, the end. This is a puzzle that seems to be missing several pieces.

Flanery channels Mickey Rourke, while Ms. Loken contends with her stale, straight-out-of-central-casting female agent role.

In addition to to all of this, it's very tedious to watch! Painful, in fact...

This minor action film aims higher than most, causing it to fail more obviously. The script poses a vast conspiracy that is supposed to give the story some importance, but is very poorly developed and resolved.

Most annoying to me was the haphazard construction of the story arc and its hanging plot threads, as badly handled as I've seen in ages. The two main characters: cop Flanery and Amazonian FBI agent Loken are dropped from a long stretch that focuses on the political subplot and bad guy, then reinserted for action sequences. Then near the end the star Flanery is lost completely with no explanation as the film's continuity deteriorates miserably. Tacked on ending focusing on Loken for the usual "sequelitis" prospect of a follow-up feature betrays a possibly unfinished film project here, also hinted at by the placement of the director credit mid-way through opening credits, and listing as a director the IMDb-listed second unit director Jeffrey Robinson.