Murder at 1600 (1997)

User Rating:

5.9/10   

Director:

Dwight H. Little

Writers (WGA):

Wayne Beach (written by) &
David Hodgin (written by)

Release Date:

18 April 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

He's a D.C. cop on the outside. She's a Secret Service agent on the inside. Tracking a White House homicide to the First Family's front door.

Plot:

At a time of international incident, the body of a young female staffer is found in a White House wash room...

Plot Keywords:

Secret Service | White House | Investigation | Political | North Korea

Cast

Wesley Snipes	...	Det. Harlan Regis
Diane Lane	...	Agent Nina Chance
Daniel Benzali	...	Agent Nick Spikings
Dennis Miller	...	Det. Steve Stengel
Alan Alda	...	National Security Advisor Alvin Jordan
Ronny Cox	...	President Jack Neil
Diane Baker	...	Kitty Neil, First Lady
Tate Donovan	...	Kyle Neil, First Son
Harris Yulin	...	General Clark Tully
Tom Wright	...	Agent Hal Cooper
Nicholas Pryor	...	Paul Moran
Charles Rocket	...	Jeffrey Arthur Groves
Nigel Bennett	...	Agent Burton Cash
Tamara Gorski	...	Ex-Girlfriend in Bar
Douglas O'Keeffe	...	John Kerry, the Assassin

Also Known As:

Murder at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

107 min | Argentina:108 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:14 | Iceland:16 (video rating) | France:Unrated | Philippines:PG-13 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Canada:13+ (Québec) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:M18 | South Korea:18 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (cut) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

36-42 Maitland Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The name of the assassin in the movie is "John Kerry".

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Nina steals Carla's Filofax, she places it in the waist of her trousers. When she is running away from the secret service agents in the alley, the Filofax isn't there.

Quotes:

[after a White House camera picture ends up on a tabloid front page]
Agent Nick Spikings: [to his staff] Whoever leaked this, I'm going to *bottle his last breath*!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Pootie Tang (2001)

casualty of war

-After witnessing a blonde lady get laid pretty good with pictures of former presidents watching we see her dead in a bathroom inside the white house. An investigation soon goes out to find the person responsible for the murder. Detective Harlan Regis is assigned to the case and he's brought in to make it seems like the white house is actually trying to solve the case. The CIA assigns a super hot agent Nina Chance to help him out and together the two begin to solve the murder. they begin to discover that there's more to the murder than meets the eye and apparently the real mastermind of the crime is someone in the white house who tries their best to get the Regis and Nina killed but they eventually and in a Scooby Doo twist find out whose really responsible for the horrible crime. Don't expect the twist to make you drop your jaw since you can see it coming miles away.

-Some stories are great for bringing something original and fun to the table and some are great for being predicable and this movie is the latter. We've seen everything in the story before and there's really nothing groundbreaking happening but that's why it works so well. The story is essential an R rated "Law and Order" episode in which the person you think is guilty turns out to be a good person and the good person turns out to be bad. Writers Wayne Beach and David Hodgin try their very best to give the movie a very realistic sense and they do succeed as the whole movie feels like something that might happen. They cover everything from the CNN coverages to public reactions which helps the movie attain it's realistic feel.

-I'm not familiar with director Dwight Little's movies but since I enjoyed this one so much I guess it won't hurt to check out his past movies. Wesley Snipes plays the character Harlan Regis pretty decently and I love the way even though the movie itself is cliché he still manages to add his own flavor to the character and makes him as likable as it gets. The unfunny Dennis Miller plays the token wisecracking sidekick that you can always count on whiles Ronny Cox of "Robocop" fame plays the president. Diane Lane also does an okay job but really nothing to stand up and applaud over and the best character in the movie Alvin Jordan is played by Alan Alda.

-the action scenes in the movie kick severe butt. there's no wires or any green screen involved it's just good ol' Snipes unleashing a massive hurting on the bad guys that give him problems. I'm guessing his fighting skills is what helped give him the job in the "Blade" movies. I really love the way it doesn't go on for too long like most action movies but comes and goes with ease. Another predictable element of the movie is the score by Chris Young who should be doing the next spider-man movie next. It's not a bad score but just feels like its being done before like everything else in the movie.

-as far as political thrillers go this won't win any award for originality but it's very nice story that fills up the two hours really fast