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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An impressive, tantalizing thriller, March 27, 2004
Once again I find myself praising a movie that a majority of folks seem to view as average at best. Murder at 1600 is a serious movie that you can't take too seriously, not if you want to enjoy it. Wesley Snipes has a few humorous bits, and Dennis Miller is his normally wisecracking self, and I think the movie perhaps benefits from this remote air of unreality due to its subject matter - after all, the brutal murder of a young woman inside the White House is some pretty serious stuff. The other main aspect of the film, which supplies the motive for the murder in the first place, is - granted - a little bit out there, and that is where the subtle sense of unreality pays dividends; without it, it would really be hard to get from here to there.Carla Towne is a young unknown White House staffer - until her body is found in a White House restroom sporting a number of deadly knife wounds. This is not good news for the President, who is already bottoming out in the polls for still attempting to negotiate, six months into the crisis, the release of an AWAC crew captured and obviously tortured by the North Koreans. Wesley Snipes plays Detective Harlan Regis, the investigator summoned to the White House to investigate the murder. The Secret Service as an organization is less than friendly and cooperative, viewing the White House as its beat alone. Except for his buddy and sometimes partner (played by Dennis Miller), Regis is pretty much on his own. The tight-lipped and intimidating Nick Spikings (Daniel Benzali), the chief of White House security and definite contender for the next Lex Luthor look-alike contest (his Marlon Brando impersonation isn't half bad, either) assigns Agent Nina Chance (Diane Lane) as Regis' liaison with the Secret Service. Spikings doesn't mess around, and once he has tabbed an individual for the murder, he wants Chance to have nothing to do with Regis. The detective is pretty persistent, though, and Chance has to weigh her sense of duty against her sense of justice. The list of suspects is quite fluid, and I think the movie does a very good job of sustaining suspense and the sense of mystery throughout. The facts as Regis acquires them make not only the President's philandering son, but the President himself possible suspects. Then you have the crisis with North Korea coming to the fore, with the President really frustrating his top advisors with his incredibly wimpy refusal to risk war with North Korea over the military hostage crisis. The truth, when it comes, does push the envelope to some degree, but it is certainly logical in the given context. I didn't ID the real bad guy any sooner than Regis and Chance did, so that to me is a good thing. A great mystery, plenty of action, power politics, lust, murder, conspiracy inside conspiracy: Murder in 1600 offers the viewers all of this and more. The ending itself is well done in my opinion, as well. Thus, this reviewer counts this as an impressive and very entertaining thriller.
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