Power Play

One can only ponder the sort of mysterious machinations and manipulation of metrics that go on behind the curtain of Netflix's rating and suggestion system, all to suggest to you to watch "The Larry Sanders Show" based on your viewing of an episode of "The Office" or that "Stripes" tops their list of suggested "Raunchy Underdog Satires". One particular film that often comes up when Netflix generates any list for me involving the phrases "Political", "Thriller", "Action", or "Steamy" (Steamy Political Action Thriller?) is the above forgotten straight to video flotsam from 1997 "Executive Power".

While I would have, like most of America when it came out, totally overlooked and forgotten about this inconsequential piece of cinema (so irreverent that it couldn't even muster a wikipedia entry), I just could not ignore the eye catching shoddiness of its cover every time it popped up on the site. There is no shortage of poorly designed and ascetically questionable covers on Netflix, arising mainly from but not limited to low budget straight to video fare, but something about the "Executive Power" cover really makes it stand out among its fellow bad cover contemporaries. Mainly the cover makes it look like the main protagonists (that high profile pairing of Craig Sheffer and Andrea Roth) are being literally chased by the White House, like it's trying to eat them or something. Of course if there was a horror film about a cannibalistic White House it would obviously be called "Executive Power". As for the title, it's weirdly subdued and taken off center and stuffed in the top corner for seemingly no good reason (show off that sweet shot of the White House?). Additionally why two separate fonts? Don't really see the need to change it up like that. On a subtle level, I think the lack of a tag line or critic quote or even credits on the front (you mean you're not going to capitalize on the high profile pairing of Craig Sheffer and Andrea Roth?) also throws you off.

In the film's defense, the above terrible cover may have been a hastily created alternate for the original cover. The VHS copy of the film on Amazon shows a completely different, more "traditional" (got the names up top, taglines and consistent font title front and center) albeit more risque cover. I suspect that the prudes over at Netflix opted out of this original cover, which looks like a Harlequin novel written by Tom Clancy, to the more vanilla yet aesthetically unpleasant alternate.

On an interesting side note, the basic premise of "Executive Power", male and female protagonists (the high profile couple of Craig Sheffer and Andrea Roth) trying to uncover the truth involving the cover-up of a sex scandal turned murder by the President (noted 80's asshole William Atherton) while being pursued by dangerous shadowy individuals within the administration (John Heard), is quite similar to another 1997 political thriller "Absolute Power" where male and female protagonists (Clint Eastwood and Laura Linney) try to uncover the truth involving the cover-up of a sex scandal turned murder by the President (Gene Hackman) while being pursued by dangerous shadowy individuals within the administration (Judy Davis). This shouldn't be confused with the other 1997 film "Murder at 1600" where male and female protagonists (Wesley Snipes and Diane Lane) try to uncover the truth involving the cover-up of a sex scandal turned murder by the President (other noted 80s asshole Ronny Cox) while being pursued by dangerous shadowy individuals within the administration (Alan Alda).

Was there something about the second Clinton Administration that fostered such fantasies of the President being a lecherous murderer? The Lewinsky scandal which eventually broke the following year showed he was sort of a sleaze, but a murderer? Well...