'Absolute Power' is govt-bashing, Eastwood style

JAKARTA (JP): Fight evil with brains. Play two powerhouses against each other. These seem to be the typical brusque messages Clint Eastwood is trying to convey in his latest directorial effort, Absolute Power.

Although the plot is adapted from David Baldacci's novel -- another political scandal involving the U.S. President -- and penned by conspiracy-movie veteran William Goldman (All the President's Men), the spirit is ostensibly Eastwood's.

Originality is not Eastwood's domain. He's best at doing the Japanese thing -- refining flagging existence. His directorial debut Play Misty for Me practically revived the anemic family- thriller genre and prompted Adrian Lyne to make Fatal Attraction, while Unforgiven not only redefined the decaying Western but also snatched the 1992's Best Picture title.

Another Eastwood trait: he is a master of taciturnity. The roles in which his world-weary calmness belies a deadly genius have best served his career.

Vanity, however, is a mark of mortality, and something that even Clint Eastwood -- a Hollywood legend at 67 -- finds hard to avoid. But what Simon Wardell of Premiere Magazine describes as Eastwood's "iron determination to make films on his own terms" may explain why despite its adrenaline-pumping, much maligned premise, Absolute Power is really about Eastwood's character, Luther Whitney.

Luther Whitney is a highly-decorated war veteran and a master thief. One day, while pillaging the mansion of billionaire philanthropist and political king-maker Walter Sullivan (E.G. Marshall), he witnesses the bizarre murder of Sullivan's young wife Christy (Melora Hardin) which involves U.S. President Alan Richmond (Gene Hackman).

Chief of Staff Gloria Russell (Judy Davis) rises to the occasion by initiating a cover-up involving Secret Service Agents Bill Burton (Scott Glenn) and Tim Collin (Dennis Haysbert). Predictably, Whitney is implicated. A jab at Madeleine Albright, no doubt.

Meanwhile, other "human" characters include honest detective Seth Frank (Ed Harris) and Whitney's estranged, initially unforgiving daughter, Kate (Laura Linney), who is the county prosecutor. But, rest assured, a daughter's forgiveness -- as are justice, redemption, and an armada of Hollywood's other shining virtues -- is the sure reward for striking back against the system.

Until last year's Shadow Conspiracy, White House plots were either: a) an apologetic homage to good Presidents targeted by high-powered conspirators (J.F.K., In the Line of Fire). Or a rose-tinted homage to the nation's saxophone-playing, baby- boomer icon a.k.a. Leader of the New World which "humanizes" the President in such a way as to give the role to the ever pulchritudinous Michael Douglas (The American President).

In the light of Whitewater, Eastwood is obviously feeding off the current mood of political paranoia. Once, in Clear and Present Danger, a crooked U.S. President (Bush look-alike Donald Moffat) said to idealistic CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford):"The country cannot avoid another scandal -- a deception that goes right to the top." Well, Bill, here is your kind of deception on a Hollywood gold platter.

Streamlined style

Since the movie is about Luther Whitney, you wonder just how it is different. For one, don't expect sensational stunts and pyrotechnics. The movie is eloquent, reposed and economical, compensating for what it lacks in details and verbal technicalities with visual repartee.

Take the opening few scenes: Whitney calmly sketching details from the masterworks at the Louvre. Whitney having a candlelight dinner alone at home. Low-key, introverted, but demonically capable, Whitney is the quintessential Eastwood.

Yet, Eastwood's streamlined, unobtrusive, almost minimalist style proves both his strength and weakness. For instance, that famous craggy face doesn't register much emotional resonance even in the face of a shocking murder.

Worse, there is this nagging feeling that many things are not quite right although you can't put a finger on them as you watch the movie. For one, the movie is so one-sided that we either fail to see the conspirators' side of the story or simply think they are gosh-darn incompetent.

For instance, would a Chief of Staff be so unprofessional as to leave the key evidence at the crime site? Would a Chief of Staff turn up at a gala reception resplendently bejeweled, blushing and flirting with the President, and turning a presidential dance into a campy spectacle? Just what kind of an Intelligence outfit does America possess that it cannot even track Whitney to the Airport, so that we don't have to have Whitney again deciding on his own terms whether to flee the country?

Yet all these plot holes seem almost irrelevant in the face of the extraordinary power unleashed by the A-list cast who almost gives the movie its all. Perhaps some of these coincidences can explain.

Clint Eastwood has played the U.S. president's bodyguard in In the Line of Fire, so sympathizing with Scott Glenn's character is not a problem. Laura Linney has played a groaning prosecutor before in Primal Fear: in fact, she set a new standard in the gruff, "I'm-no-custard" female repertoire. Scott Glenn has played a tortured conscience who finally found redemption in taking his own life in Backdraft. E.G. Marshall is no stranger to the Oval Office, having played the U.S. President in Superman II. As for Judy Davis, well, she's just Judy Davis in yet another brilliantly manic performance.

Gene Hackman is Hollywood's consummate master in playing holier-than-thou, smooth-talking scums. To top it all off, he's also played a top government official who accidentally murdered someone, blamed someone else, and got the entire bureaucratic shebang to cover up for him in No Way Out. He is essentially basking in his own glorious, not to mention hackneyed, past.

Yet, what Absolute Power really thrives on is arrogance -- a conviction of one Clint Eastwood that a potboiler premise needs no ammunition other than his own charisma. But it's an arrogance that works: after all, haven't we been pining for something other than pyrotechnics lately?