Our series on 'movies about presidents' continues with a fun discussion of this 1997 'thriller', written by legendary Hollywood screenwriter William Goldman based on the debut novel of David Baldacci, starring/produced/directed by noted chair-interviewer Clint Eastwood, and boasting a splendid cast - including recently-deceased screen legend Gene Hackman - none of whom are given anything very interesting to do. Clint plays a suave cat burglar - with the unlikely name of Luther Whitney - who accidentally witnesses the president of the United States sexually assaulting a woman (far-fetched, right?) and getting her killed. All Hell then persistently threatens but repeatedly fails to break loose. Instead we get a slow, aimless, half-baked movie filled with good elements that don't cohere or go anywhere special. It sparked an amusing conversation though, as we hope you will agree. Full episode exclusive for Patreon subscribers. Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay independent. Patrons get exclusive access to at least one full extra episode a month. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper/posts Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618&fan_landing=true IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's (Locked) Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ Jack's Bluesky: @timescarcass.bsky.social Daniel's Bluesky: @danielharper.bsky.social IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1
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Here's a preview of the new one.
Wanted. Ambitious individual for leadership position.
Be prepared for difficult application process and stressful work environment.
Challenges? Many.
Rewards? Numerous.
Failure? Possible.
Your employer?
The American people.
The few chosen have been...
The Presidents.
Okay, welcome back everybody to the IDSG bonus episode series on movies about presidents.
And yeah, there's no...
Reason to stop?
I mean, there's no reason to be, you know, like, existentially terrified whenever anybody mentions the concept of the President of the United States or anything like that.
I mean, you can just carry on talking about this.
So yeah, another episode in that series, movies about presidents, and the movie that we are talking about in this bonus episode is Absolute Power.
And you should probably get used to me saying it that way, because every time I say the title of this movie in this episode, I'm liable to say it, Absolute Power.
power. Daniel, I know nothing about this.
I've just realized I've completely failed to do the normal basic baseline minimum bloody research that I should normally do before coming.
Sure. So, this was released in 1997.
It was based on David Baldacci's first book, which it was optioned even before it was published.
This was kind of a hot property moving around Hollywood for a little bit.
Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.
He also produced, because he produces everything he's made for the last 30 years or so.
And written by William Goldman.
And William Goldman is the reason that I knew about this film or kind of had it in my memory.
William Goldman, among other things, he wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride are probably two things that you would know him best for.
But he was a Hollywood screenwriter for decades and decades and decades and wrote two very good books about screenwriting, one of which included The Process of Writing Absolute Power, which I read back in 2003 or something like that.
The book was released in 2000, so I probably read it in 2001 or 2002.
And I reread bits of that book for preparation of this because he goes into some detail about the problems of adapting the script.
And so I'd always had this movie in my memory because, A, I'd seen the trailers back in the day, although I'd never seen the film, but also...
I knew it because of that book by William Goldman.
Also, we were kind of decided to do this because Gene Hackman just died and he plays the pivotal role of the President of the United States in this.
So, that's kind of the background here.
There you go, yeah.
As you say, it's topical because we just lost Gene Hackman tragically and his wife in a very grim I mean, we talked a little bit about Gene Hackman in the run-up to recording our last episode,
not the one with Craig, the one with just you and I. And your thoughts on Gene Hackman, Daniel?
Gene Hackman is someone I have always, like, he's, you know, his kind of run of Prolificity.
He made a ton of movies in the 80s.
I think he starred in more movies in the 1980s than any other person.
I think I saw that statistic somewhere.
That sounds right.
I think at one point he was doing six or seven movies a year.
He's one of those actors like, I think we mentioned Tommy Lee Jones and Jack Nicholson, but Tommy Lee Jones in particular, or Harrison Ford, excuse me, who my dad always liked.
Gene Hackman, I always think of my dad when I see a Gene Hackman movie.
And in that pleasant way, you remember your father from when you were single digits.
And so, yeah, I think he's an actor who's had so many different phases in his career.
You can look at his 60s stuff where he was just doing TV work.
And, you know, you think about like, that could have been like a full career of just, he was an actor who was in, he was a, who killed in a bunch of great sixties cop movies or cop shows or whatever.
Then you look at his early seventies work or his late sixties, early seventies work.
And you get into the, you know, the conversation and night moves and Scarecrow and these like very like detailed, like character focused works.
And that's some of his great performances are, you know, at that time.
And then he does the run of great stuff in the eighties, you know, and it was like, each decade could be like a,
And so Hackman has always been, and he was always just Gene Hackman.
Most people would probably think of him, obviously the biggest role he ever did was playing Lex Luthor in three of the four Superman movies.
But actually when he died, that was like fifth down the line of the things that I thought of.
I was like, oh right, he also played Lex Luthor, right?
Thinking of Mississippi Burning and Crimson Tide and all that other stuff that just kind of came to mind more as like, oh, that's a Gene Hackman performance.
And obviously, The Conversation and Night Moves, which are two of my favorite Gene Hackman movies.
This one I had never seen until yesterday.
So this is not...
Really? Yeah, no, never seen it until yesterday.
Had you seen it previously?
Yeah, just doubling back a little bit before I get into that.
Gene Hackman is...
He's a really interesting actor.
I mean, you name-checked The Conversation and Night Moves.
Conversation, absolutely brilliant movie.
Very much one of those movies that I saw when I was younger and was a real game-changer in my appreciation of cinema, amongst other movies.
Night Moves is a movie that I didn't see until years later, and I think even today it's a semi-obscure movie.
And I'm afraid that's all you're getting of that, at least for the time being.
If you want to hear the rest of it, you'll have to give myself or Daniel as little as $1 a month on Patreon.
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