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MURDER AT 1600

By Tom Meek | April 21, 1997

Not even Hollywood can keep up with Clinton’s scandal du jour, but “Murder at 1600” comes close as a cloud of sex, greed and corruption blows through the Oval Office. It’s easily the best of the recent crop of White House conspiracy thrillers, outdistancing Clint Eastwood’s amiable “Absolute Power”
and the atrociously thoughtless “Shadow Conspiracy”, and look for “Primary Colors”, the up coming fictitious Clinton tell-all, to do some legitimate damage.
A gorgeous White House employee, who takes her duty of ‘being on staff’ to its most provocative form, is mysteriously killed in the President’s digs and before anyone can cry “independent council”, Wesley Snipes, street wise detective, is called in to figure out who pulled the inside job. After getting the old “Watergate” run-around from various in-house cronies, Snipes sniffs out a cover-up and enlists the aide of an attractive Secret Service agent (Diane Lane) to crack the case. No the stars don’t do the deed, but the President and his son are implicated in some kinky hanky-panky that has more of a Kennedy, than a Clinton flavor to it. Director Dwight Little does a solid job to keep things credible and moving, while the script makes an earnest effort to hide the true villain until the climax. Some how I can’t help but think off to ten years from now when Oliver Stone makes “Clinton”. Having just seen “Double Team” I think Mickey Rourke would be primo for the lead.

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