ABSOLUTE POWER (1997) ****

Clint Eastwood is a great actor and good director, and in Absolute Power he gives us farfetched plot, but pulls it off with precision and makes a great popcorn flick out of a potentially ridiculous premise.  The story involves a thief played by Eastwood who is robbing the White House and witnesses a kinky affair by the President (Gene Hackman) that ends in murder.  The Secret Service is after Clint, and the cops want him too, but he uses his seasoned skills to elude them at every turn.  Eastwood makes a jumbled story coherent through crackerjack direction, great performances, and good editing.  Hackman is good as the lecherous President and so is Ed Harris as a concerned cop.  Murder at 1600 was another similarly themed President wanted for murder flick in 97.