Published via Ecency

(source: tmdb.org)

Issues like need for clean renewable energy and foreign influence on US election used to dominate headlines in past few years, but they aren’t exactly new. They used to be as relevant few decades ago as they are now, at least judging by the way they played part in the plot of Power, 1986 political drama directed by Sidney Lumet.

Protagonist, played by Richard Gere, is Pete St. John, PR expert specialised in consulting political campaigns. St. John is consummate professional who actually doesn’t care much about politics but some clients happen to be more favoured than others. One of them is Senator Sam Hastings (played by E. G. Marshall), an old friend who inexplicably decides to retire just as he was preparing to help pushing bills that would replace fossil fuels with solar energy. St. John is instead hired to run campaign by Jerome Cade (played by J. T. Walsh), wealthy but unknown businessman who hopes to inherit Hasting’s Senate seat. As time goes by, St. John gets increasingly uncomfortable with the job and when he tries to investigate Arnold Billings (played by Denzel Washington), powerful Washington lobbyist connected both with Cade and Middle Eastern countries interested in keeping oil business as it is. His efforts bring Billings’ attention who has his office bugged and sabotaged. St. John is nevertheless determined to investigate and he does so with the help of Ellen Freeman (played by Julie Christie), ex wife who works as investigative journalist. In the meantime, Senate campaign gets complicated with entry of Philip Aarons (played by Matt Salinger), idealistic professor whose media consultant is St. John’s old mentor and friend Wilfred Buckley (played by Gene Hackman).

Sidney Lumet has built a reputation on the films exposing the serious issues of American society, like corruption within police, judiciary or media. Script by David Himmelsman, which tackled increasing influence of media consultants and PR on American politics, looked like it could have been one such film. This idea is close to realisation in the first part of the film, when the audience is introduced to St. John and can see his great manipulative work on different campaigns. Power looks like realistic and serious film. Unfortunately, at the half of running time it begins to fall apart mainly because some unfortunate casting choices. Beatrice Straight terribly overacts in the role of Senator’s wife with a guilty conscience, while Hackman is too annoying as failed media consultant. Another problem is script that doesn’t know whether it is a thriller (judging by the scenes featuring bugging and protagonist’s paranoia) or straight drama. In the end Power succumbs to Hollywood cliches, with protagonist getting the epiphany and deciding to help his client’s rival whose idealistic politics happens to be closer to his. Film, to its credits, avoids Hollywood fairytale ending, but in the end general impression is mostly underwhelming and few interesting observations about state of 1980s US politics and media simply isn’t enough for Power to be recommended for watching today.

RATING: 4/10 (++)