Power (1986)

Power is one of those Sidney Lumet films that makes the machinery of American politics feel immediate and human, not as civics-class abstraction but as a high-stakes trade practiced by people who are brilliant, compromised, and sometimes oddly funny. Richard Gere gives Pete St. John a slick, persuasive surface with just enough fatigue underneath to suggest a conscience fighting for air, while Gene Hackman and a sharp, early-career Denzel Washington add bite and volatility to every scene they touch. The movie’s great pleasure is how intelligently it observes campaign culture—the jargon, the tactics, the ego, the moral shortcuts—without turning it into a lecture, letting the tension build through relationships and professional brinkmanship. It isn’t an action thriller and it doesn’t pretend politics are noble, but if you like smart, adult dramas about power and the price of winning, this one has real electricity.

Power is clearly trying to be a slick, morally thorny look at political consulting—how image-making corrodes everyone involved—and on paper it’s exactly the kind of adult drama Sidney Lumet could usually make sing. The problem is it plays more like a string of incidents than a tightening story, with an overplotted, sometimes muddled script that keeps shifting gears without landing a satisfying payoff. Even with Richard Gere’s polished cynicism and strong support from Gene Hackman and a young Denzel Washington, the film feels oddly sexless and emotionally ungrounded, like it’s describing corruption rather than making you feel it. If you want a sharp, focused political thriller or a character study with real bite, this may test your patience; if you’re mainly here for late-80s star power and a few solid scenes, it’s passable but not essential.