Power (1986)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Sidney Lumet

Writer:

David Himmelstein (written by)

Release Date:

31 January 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

More seductive than sex... More addictive than any drug... More precious than gold. And one man can get it for you. For a price.

Plot:

Pete St. John is a powerful and successful political consultant, with clients spread around the country...

Plot Keywords:

Political | Senator | Power | Corruption

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Richard Gere	...	Pete St. John
Julie Christie	...	Ellen Freeman
Gene Hackman	...	Wilfred Buckley
Kate Capshaw	...	Sydnet Betterman
Denzel Washington	...	Arnold Billing
E.G. Marshall	...	Senator Sam Hastings, Ohio
Beatrice Straight	...	Claire Hastings
Fritz Weaver	...	Wallace Furman, New Mexico Gubernatorial Candidate
Michael Learned	...	Governor Andrea Stannard, Washington
J.T. Walsh	...	Jerome Cade, Ohio Senatorial Candidate
E. Katherine Kerr	...	Irene Furman
Polly Rowles	...	Lucille DeWitt
Matt Salinger	...	Phillip Aarons, Independent Ohio Senatorial Candidate
Tom Mardirosian	...	Sheikh
Omar Torres	...	Roberto Cepeda, Presidential Candidate

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Singapore:NC-16 | Iceland:L | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:11 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Armonk, New York, USA

Company:

Lorimar Productions

Trivia:

When this film premiered at the 1986 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, reels 3 and 4 were sequentially reversed by Sundance staffer and IATSE projectionist David Nelson. Most critics and viewers said that they didn't notice the mistake in what they called an otherwise disappointing film. One of the film's makers demanded that the incomplete premiere be stopped and it wasn't rescheduled, the only such film in festival history to do so.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Sitting Pretty (1990) (V)

Soundtrack:

SING, SING, SING

Muddled, And With No Edge

The main problem with "Power" is that it features way too may pointless characters and subplots that add absolutely nothing to the movie whatsoever. It gets boring after awhile, sitting around waiting through scenes that don't connect to find something that drives the movie forward. You could probably pass it all off as character development, but all of them are either recycled from earlier scenes in the movie, or are just simply to flat and uninteresting. Lumet never gives enough time to let any of the supporting cast blossom. He should have cut a few of the characters (hackman, the wife) and concentrated harder on others (Billings). It could have been a great, hard political thriller instead of a jumbled mess that loses any message in a sea of bad writing and acting, a fact that amazed me considering the cast. Even Gene Hackman performance wasn't up to par. Denzel Washington is the only real actor of note here. Gere and the others have all done much better performances elsewhere.

Sidney Lumet needs to go back to the fierce one man shows he did in the seventies (i.e, Serpico) and stop trying to recapture his success with "12 Angry Men" and "Fail Safe". It hasn't worked yet Sidney, and it most likely never will. leave the ensemble dramas to Altman.

3/10

* / * * * *