When a staffer is found murdered in the White House, police officer Detective Harlan Regis (Wesley Snipes) is put on the case.
When it becomes clear that the murder has ties to the current administration - and the man leading it - Regis finds his life in jeopardy.
Forced on the run, Regis and disgraced Secret Service agent Nina Chance (Diane Lane) are in a race against time to uncover the killer.
The trek through nineties thrillers continues, with this Washington DC-set murder mystery.
This thing feels like an airport thriller - the premise is high concept and a tad salacious, and the plot features familiar elements like an innocent man on the run, attempted assassinations and government corruption.
This latter element feels particularly specific to its context - it fits right in with the themes of conspiracy and rogue government agencies which were prevelant in the nineties.
The casting of Wesley Snipes and Diane Lane also gives the film the feel of one of those serial killer/erotic/courtroom thrillers that were omnipresent in that decade.
For the first half hour, this movie is kind of enjoyable. But once the plot pieces are in place it never really gets going. It is not that the movie falls apart - it just never quite works as the genre piece it wants to be.
There is a lot going on but it never feels that connected - there are constant references to the shift in public opinion toward the President but it feels disconnected from the main action. And the main action is not that interesting, mostly because it never feels like Snipes is in that much peril.
Snipes is fine in the lead, but the character is often subservient to the plot. At the outset it feels like the movie is going to have a go at some commentary about the cultural, racial and economic differences between the White House and the city around it. Snipes is introduced worrying about his apartment building, which is scheduled to be demolished to make way for some new government building. This kernel of an idea is completely dropped once the mystery gets going, and only returns as a joke at the end.
He does not have much chemistry with Diane Lane, but the script does not do a particularly good job of building their dynamic. The lack of characterisation is indicative of a bigger problem - the movie feels smaller than its scope, and feels too undeveloped for its cast.
Part of it is the direction - Dwight Little is primarily an action movie director, and his style is pretty blunt and to the point. His staging of the film’s one action sequence - the attack on the house - is fine, but he has no feel for suspense. This is evident in the scenes where our hero is entering threatening spaces (the darkened warehouse; his own apartment after an intruder breaks in). Little does not use a moving camera, makes limited use of shadow, and uses a lot of flat compositions which do not allow for building tension in the back/foreground of the frame.
The bigger problem is the script, which never feels that developed.
Watching the movie, I never got the sense of the inner workings of Washington or the Secret Service. The movie feels too simplistic and underdeveloped. The movie’s twists do not feel that surprising, and the villain’s ultimate motivation is so remote it just never clicks.
This movie is not ridiculous enough to be a cartoonish thriller, and it lacks the depth and nuance to work as a drama.
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