I've never been a Wesley Snipes fan - he's just not a name that usually will draw me to a film. However, I think he does a great job in the film Murder at 1600. Snipes portrays Washington DC detective Harlan Regis. In the beginning of the film, he is trying to figure out how to avoid being evicted when he is called to a very familiar Washington address to investigate a homicide. The eviction and a conflict with the North Koreans is going on in the background all during the murder investigation. It's not enough to have to deal with the usual complications of a homicide investigation, but what Regis is dealing with here is national security issues. His access to evidence as well as people to question is restricted by both the Secret Service and the National Security Administration. Who are they covering up for? His Secret Service liaison is Nina Chance, a former Olympic gold-medalist in sharp-shooting. Casting Diane Lane in this part was also a good move. She is a contemporary of Snipes here - not a love interest and not an underling. She is truly his equal and plays the part very well. The film follows Regis, Chance, and Regis' partner Detective Steve Stengel (portrayed by a subdued Dennis Miller) through their investigation. While there is some action, primarily this movie is filled with suspense. In the beginning, it was immediately apparent to me that the initial suspect was being set-up but who actually committed the murder eluded me until about three-quarters of the way through. Daniel Benzali also does a tremendous job portraying Head White House Secret Service Agent Nick Spikings. Along with Alan Alda as National Security Advisor Alvin Jordan, I never had a clear motivation as to whether they thought they were protecting someone or just trying to work their own agenda. Who was the good guy? Who was the bad guy? How much does the President know? Is he involved? This movie kept me in suspense very well. The sub-plot of his dealing with the North Korean crisis also played out good in light of recent events. Rather than charge right in to attempt to rescue thirteen men who were shot down while spying, he is attempting to negotiate, much to the chagrin of the National Security Advisor and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Should he be questioned about a murder that he may or may not have had anything to do with while having to deal with a crisis of global proportions? Many of the questions the film raised I could see being applied to the Presidency just as I've known it with the last two inhabitants of the White House. There are plenty of parts that are rather implausible. Just a look at the notoriety the Bush daughters gained with their illegal drinking makes me believe it would be impossible for the Secret Service to cover up the President's son beating up his girlfriend. The press knows about underage drinking but not a beating? I don't think so. I also thought the ease with which access was gained to the White House at the end was ridiculous, even if it was necessary for the plot. I was also somewhat disturbed by the portrayal of the Secret Service as an agency that functioned to cover-up for the President and his family. In the beginning, they seem to be primarily responsible for the framing of the initial suspect. Agent Chance goes along with this until Detective Regis rattles her by suggesting her silence will be responsible for sending an innocent man to jail. It seems like no other agents had a moral problem with sending an innocent man to prison. At the end, we know even though the murderer has been found and his evil plans thwarted, a cover-up will still occur. There is politics at play in keeping the citizens innocent about a lot of the scandals. However, I have to wonder how they will manage to keep people like Detective Regis and Detective Stengel from talking, since neither of them indicated all along that they play the political games.
A friend who was recently found to be HIV+ asked me a lot of questions about the emergence of AIDS in the 1980's. He was born long after that time, and was relying on what information he could find to learn about the history of this modern disease. I answered his questions as best I could, as well as recommending he view And The Band Played On.Opens in Central Africa in 1976 as medical researchers with the World Health Organization venture into an African Village where it seems nearly the entire population has died from Ebola, which was a new virus at the time. A year later in Copenhagen, a woman dies of a type of pneumonia, pneumocystis, that's usually associated with another illness. Yet doctors cannot find another illness that's causing the pneumocystis. Similar cases begin to crop up around the world. In San Francisco, because of the high gay population and the high promiscuity, it comes to the attention of local health officials. From there on it’s a chronicle of the battle to get the disease recognized and figure out how it is transmitted. It was easy to pigeon-hole as “gay cancer” until it started appearing in the general population. Still, people didn’t like to admit they had contracted the disease due to the stigma attached to it. Swoosie Kurtz portrays a socialite with the disease who’s reluctant to admit it. However, once “normal” people like her rose above the suspicion and gossip to acknowledge the disease, it helped a great deal. One of the biggest battles the team of doctors faced was getting the Red Cross to recognize that the disease threatened the blood supply. What And The Band Played On demonstrates most of all is how human beings are sacrificed to egos, budgets, and bureaucratic red-tape. Matthew Modine is a scientist with the Center for Disease Control, Don Francis. He becomes embroiled in the battle for recognition of the disease once he sees disturbing patterns emerging. His is an uphill battle as he seems to be fighting against the morality of the times as well as a whole host of other obstacles to get to the point where the disease is simply recognized for what it is. Alan Alda plays against type as an opportunistic scientist who’s more worried about credit than actually making progress against the disease. He succeeds in delaying recognition of the disease for what it is as well as crucial testing. How many more people were infected and died due to this man’s machinations? The world will never know. The rest of the cast reads like a who’s who of early 1990’s Hollywood: Richard Gere portrays a choreographer infected with the disease, Phil Collins is a sleazy bathhouse owner more worried about his profits than spreading the disease, Ian McKellan is an activist in San Francisco, Lilly Tomlin, Glenne Headley, David Dukes, and Anjelica Huston all portray various doctors involved with the disease. As we’re starting to hear talk of people being “cured” of AIDS, it’s important to reflect how it began, and make sure it never happens again. The government and the private sector should never drag their feet simply because of how they feel about the group of people affected by it. We have a history of not learning from our mistakes and perhaps if we had learned that lesson from various drug epidemics when they originated in ghetto areas of the cities instead of ignoring them until it started affecting white kids, we would have been more on the ball when AIDS reared its ugly head. This is something that should be mandatory viewing in health classes, just to get an idea of how this started and how the government will fail to protect us from what’s out there. If you haven’t yet seen it, you should. It still resonates twenty years after it was made.
