MovieChat Forums > Absolute Power (1997) Discussion > Ridiculous Plot

Ridiculous Plot

posted 17 years ago by dmiller2000
44 replies | jump to latest

I thought I was watching a comedy at times. Lots of ridiculous scenes in this one...

**Spoiler Alert**

1. Why would the President start slapping and choking a woman that invited him into her bedroom and arranged to have sex with him? She's ready and willing, yet he suddenly has an urge to kill her??!

2. What prompted the Secret Service (SS) bozos to burst into the room when they did? The Prez and lover had been struggling and screaming for several minutes. The Chief of Staff later implied that slapping and yelling was common for the President's encounters (imagine the President's surprise in the middle of one of these past little S&M sessions to have his SS guys burst in with drawn weapons! haha!). Anyway, they would have either been aware of the Prez's little fetish and left him alone, or, having no clue, would have burst into the room at the beginning of the scuffle.

3. Trying to vacuum up the blood was hilarious! What was in all those HUGE black plastic garbage bags anyway??!!

3. Before Luther (Clint Eastwood) goes out the window on the rope, the Chief of Staff and her 2 SS guys are on the ground looking up at a third floor window and they see the curtain ruffling in the window that Luther was looking out from. Then Luther goes out a window with his rope. It may not be the same exact window (there were at least 3 windows on the wall), but all the windows in the room are ON THE SAME WALL, so he would have landed on the ground right next to the Chief of Staff!

4. It takes the 2 SS bozos 20 cut scenes of running up stairs to get up to the third floor room. They arrive as Luther rappels down to the ground and runs into the woods. The 2 SS guys run all the way back down, and out of the house, split up - one runs off and the other goes THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION to the car, then the one that went to the car meets up with the guy in the woods - who is JUST STANDING THERE waiting for him - then the chase through the woods begins. From the get go, the SS guys are only 20 yards away from Luther. What??! Perhaps Luther stopped for 20 minutes to tie his shoe or something? Maybe the fact that Luther is 67 and the SS guys are 10 to 25 years younger? It's a laughably long chase through woods and open fields and woods again. I kept thinking "Shoot him! Shoot him! He's right there!" I was laughing the whole scene! The icing on the cake was when the black SS agent said "I got the number" referring to the license plate as Luther drove away. Yeah, okay.

5. The day after the theft/murder, Seth Frank (Ed Harris), the police investigator, walks into his office, proud as a peacock, holding Luther's picture. He says something about a friend of his told him there are only 6 guys IN THE ENTIRE WORLD that could pull off that theft and only 1 of those 6 lives in D.C. - Luther! Is this how police investigation works??!! Damn! If we could just get those 6 guys, all the world's cases would be solved. Even though Seth says Luther is a decorated war hero and he doesn't go after war heroes, Seth brings Luther's file in to work and declares him the prime suspect! Wow! Powerful stuff!

6. Investigator Seth promises Luther's daughter that Luther will be safe and she will "get him back" if she arranges a meeting with Luther. Why would Seth make such an impossible, unethical, stupid promise? He is TRYING TO CAPTURE Luther. Why would Luther's daughter buy any of this? Seth is trying to CAPTURE HER FATHER! So anyway, she buys it. Seth then assembles a SWAT team to take Luther down. At that meeting, Luther and his daughter are shot at by 2 different snipers. Mass panic ensues. Now you would think she would be pretty upset with Seth, but the next scene shows Seth taking her to her house and flirting with her. I would think she would be slightly peeved that Seth nearly got her and her father killed a few minutes ago, but no... she invites him in for water and flirts back!. Sheesh! To make matters worse, Luther seems to approve of this flirting, as he has been hiding in her house during this tete-a-tete. And in the hospital, at the end, he encourages his daughter to get together with Seth. WHAT?!! "Honey, you know that guy that tried to capture me? The detective that said I am one of the top 6 criminals in the world? You know, the one that suckered you into that deathtrap? He would make a GREAT boyfriend! Why don't you invite him over for dinner next week?"

7. Seth takes Luther's daughter to Luther's house, walks up to the front door and reaches into the potted plant for the keys to the house. Luther's daughter says she's never been here before. How did Seth know where the keys were? The daughter comments that Luther always did that, but it's AFTER Seth grabs the keys and she's never been here and how would she know and... never mind.

8. The daughter discovers that her father has been stalking her during her entire life, photographing her from afar, breaking into her house when she is not home, taking things out and bringing things in (stocking her refrigerator), etc. Somehow, she finds this endearing and emotionally touching??!! I guess she likes guys that screw her (see flirting plothole above).

9. The snipers are both set up in rooms with windows (or a vehicle - I couldn't tell exactly what the SS guy was in - some kind of space with metal grates for walls, but he was definitely at ground level with a sliding window. After preparing their rifles, they both open their windows and HOLD THE RIFLE END OUT OF THE WINDOW waving the ends around. I'm serious! Watch these 2 scenes again! Unbelievable! The place is a "high traffic, public place", SWARMING with cops to boot!

10. The Prez sends the SS guys to find Luther's daughter. I thought they would bring her in for questioning or something, but they simply follow her until she happens to park her car at the edge of some cliff (??!) next to some kind of church or something. Rather than arrest her and bring her in for questioning (or use as bait, or something to get to Luther), they simply push her over the cliff and drive away? (HUH?!!) What purpose does that possibly serve??? This bizarre plot point is completely unnecessary. I will admit that I was completely surprised when they pushed her over the cliff, but adding irrational, illogical things to a movie generally has that effect.

11. After Luther finds out that the SS is taking over surveillance of his daughter, he drops the phone and speeds across the country from a phone booth in the middle of nowhere, to screeching his tires and blowing his horn repeatedly through traffic packed city streets(??) to a scene of him racing up a rural grassy hill at some church on a cliff (???), spinning his car to a stop, jumping out, walking over to the edge of the cliff, and then looking at his daughter's car at the bottom. At no time before this, did he see his daughter's car or talk to his daughter. He even drives right by the SS guys that pushed her over the cliff, seemingly oblivious. How did he know to find his daughter at the bottom of a cliff out in the country on the other side of the city???

12. The scene where the SS guy goes to inject Luther's daughter, he reaches for her arm to inject her in the crux of her elbow. All patients have IVs, so you can administer meds through the IV - no need to go poking them again. Also, the room has sounds of respirators and other monitors. The only thing Luther's daughter has on her is a simple oxygen supply line. I don't think so... okay... minor beefs... but read on:

13. How does Luther know that the black SS guy isn't a regular doctor coming to administer some scheduled meds for his daughter? He jumps the guy, even though the guy's dressed like a doctor. Perhaps it is because of my previous plothole and Luther recognized this (ah! see?). Or perhaps it is the way the SS guy, dressed like a doctor, lurks around like a Navy Seal or something the whole time he is in the hospital. I was laughing again when the guy enters the room, pulls out the needle at the door, uncaps it, and then we watch, following from behind the needle that he grips in his hand like a knife, as he creeps towards the bed ready to STRIKE! Great comedic stuff! Even funnier was when Luther wheels him out to the dumpster! That's where I put this movie.

[–] maniuis 12 years ago

Agree

[–] mojo2004 12 years ago

I just saw this on cable and I agree with the OP. My question is how did they miss the knife? The scene with the much younger SS agents chasing an old man and even with night vision goggles not being able to catch him was a joke.

Sheldon:"Was the starfish wearing boxer shorts? Because you might have been watching Nickelodeon."

[–] walkerus 8 years ago

I really enjoyed this movie. OK it is not like real life, so what? Most of us watch movies to be entertained and this movie did that. The only goof that I picked up was the sniper employed by Sullivan waved his rifle out the window when practising his position and also when shooting at Luther. He also could have shot Luther before he was startled by the reflected light. Snipers say you should shoot within the first 2 seconds if you have a view. Many movies have snipers waiting for a long time to have a shot and in the movie they often miss.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

a good summary of all that is wrong with this movie.

[–] Stratego (30495) 5 months ago

Boring and illogical and no suspense whatsoever. Terrible movie.

[–] Boromir (10005) 9 days ago

The protagonist has some good points, but some interpretations are either excessive or incorrect.

1. Disagree. Maybe the president is simply a sadist who derives sexual pleasure from causing others pain.

2. Disagree. Based on my familiarity with security personnel for senior figures—and I know quite a few—the best among them develop such a strong rapport with their boss that they can detect any unusual or irregular signs related to their boss or their environment. Not everything in that scene make sense due.

4. Agree. The chase scene. Something I noticed while watching: they were a short distance behind him throughout the chase. Both pursuers are younger than him, they had night vision goggles, and Luther was carrying a heavy bag with jewelry and money. It doesn’t make sense that they couldn’t catch him.

5. Partly agree. I also find it a bit too convenient, but it’s still possible.

6. Agree. It made sense for the daughter to express anger at the broken promise to keep her father safe. Her behavior felt a bit odd.

8. Disagree. She clearly understands that her father loves her and this is the reason she happy.

9. Agree. This was very public and therefore incredibly reckless. They knew there would be a large police presence, yet they still thought it was a good idea to target him. It’s unclear what they gained by prompting another police investigation, which would inevitably link the president to both cases.

10. Another senseless decision that only brings the police closer to uncovering the connection between the president’s circle and the murder. It would have made far more sense to threaten her for information or to kidnap and blackmail Luther rather than throw her off a cliff in broad daylight. Bad decision after bad decision.

13. Partly agree. Considering what we know about Luther’s history, it’s not surprising that the “doctor” raised his suspicions. However, I agree that the entire scene itself is absurd.

[–] Boromir (10005) 9 days ago

Strange the off-topic didn't said anything about the "suicide" scene. I can't recall a case where someone committed suicide by stabbing themselves in the neck. The entire scene is nonsensical. There should have been security guards at the door, cameras monitoring both outside and inside the room, and someone should have heard the president yelling. Most bizarrely, a president dies under such strange circumstances, and the police fail to investigate the possibility of murder despite the unusual method of "suicide" and the presence of another person in the office. This person, notably, has a clear motive for revenge—his wife was murdered by the president's guards, one of whom left behind a suicide note confessing everything and directly incriminating the president and his staff.