Now Playing: MURDER AT 1600

Wesley Snipes stars as Harlan Regis (!), a Washington, D.C. homicide detective (a part reportedly earmarked for Bruce Willis) who is summoned to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to investigate a murder. A beautiful young blonde is found stabbed to death in the White House, and a janitor is quickly arrested. Of course, he couldn’t be the killer, because he isn’t played by a name actor (and the movie would be over), but Regis’ attempts to look into the victim’s personal life are stonewalled by the Secret Service. Daniel Benzali (MURDER ONE) portrays the head of the Secret Service, and Alan Alda (M*A*S*H) is the President’s National Security Advisor. We know this because there’s actually a scene where the two men say to each other, “I run the Secret Service.” “And I’m the National Security Advisor.” Obviously, the two men know this already, but, as if they realize they’re being watched by an audience, they graciously introduce themselves for us.

Perhaps the film’s wackiest scene takes place in Snipes’ apartment. It’s established that Wesley is a history buff who has built a huge scale model of 19th-century Washington, D.C. that takes up his entire living room. Again, no prize for guessing that this unusual skill will eventually come into play. He comes home one night and notices a couple of his little figures have fallen to the floor. Hmmm, how could that have happened? Then he finds a bolt on the floor. He looks up to see a heating grid in the ceiling. This ceiling is very high off the floor, and as we see in a later scene, can only be reached by ladder. Wesley figures there must be a prowler in his pad, so he pulls his piece and wanders around. In the bedroom, he sees an open window and wet footprints (it’s raining out) leading away from it. He follows the prints into the bathroom and is ambushed by the burglar, leading to a fight and a chase. The intruder was sent by the Secret Service to bug Wesley’s apartment, but the absurdity of the scene—never mind that the guy could never have reached the vent and that he sure did a terrible job of covering his tracks—lies in the footprints. So what happened? The guy heard Wesley and started to leave via the window? Stepped outside, then changed his mind, came back in, and hid in the bathroom, leaving an easy trail for Snipes to follow?

It's not quite in COLOR OF NIGHT territory as far as its badness goes--what could be?--but it's still damn funny.
Posted by Marty
at 10:59 AM CDT