At least the whodunit puzzle left me guessing. But that's the only redeeming quality of this pretentious mystery, set at the White House. A lone, good guy cop (played by Wesley Snipes) goes up against the rich and powerful. Our hero fights the bullies and the bad guys with courage and daring. It's a tired, stale concept.
The story is chock-full of pretentious, self-important, irritatingly hip characters, most of them conveniently photogenic. The plot contains lots of chases and some fight scenes. It also contains the obligatory in-your-face news media frenzy, and other tiresome film clichés. The dialogue is banal. Example: "Section 6 secure"; "Go. Freeze!". The film's ending is unimaginative and trite.
Color cinematography is adequate, if conventional. Production design is detailed and quite convincing. Acting is average. The nondescript background music is very manipulative.
"Murder At 1600" comes across as your typical big-budget, high profile film right off the Hollywood assembly line. It's got visual pizazz and lots of "action". But the story lacks substance and depth, the characters are stereotyped, and the dialogue is vapid. It's just one more example of how Hollywood throws production megabucks as substandard screenplays.
