ABSOLUTE POWER **

Beyond far-fetched. Clint Eastwood is the burglar who, while robbing a particularly palatial house, just happens to see two of the President's bodyguards kill a woman the President was planning to have sex with, at least until they both turned violent. The President's Chief of Staff, Judy Davis, plans on blaming the killing on a botched robbery, very handy when you have a real-life robber on the premises, even if you don't know he's there.

This is just the opening of Eastwood's movie "Absolute Power", which may be one of his lesser efforts but which is highly entertaining nevertheless. A top-notch cast helps; Gene Hackman is the President, an excellent Ed Harris is one of the investigating cops, Scott Glenn and Dennis Haysbert are the trigger-happy security men and then there's Laura Linney, E.G. Marshall and Richard Jenkins while Davis pulls out perhaps one stop too many as the overly zealous Chief of Staff. It may be totally barmy but as barmy goes it's undeniably good fun and at times is actually very suspenseful. Not so much a who-done-it as a 'Did-they-really-think-they-would-get-away-with-it-just-because-I'm-the-President?