When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The main character in "Power" is Pete St. John, a highly successful media consultant. Pete is to the world of politics what a public relations consultant would be to the world of business. His job is to advise candidates for political office on the best way in which to present themselves to the media and to the electorate. The film focuses on four of Pete's clients- Roberto Cepeda, running for the Presidency of an unnamed Latin-American country, Wallace Furman, running for the Governorship of New Mexico, Andrea Stannard, the incumbent Governor of Washington State, and Jerome Cade, running for the Senate in Ohio. We are supposed to accept Pete as a ruthless and cynical individual, and he is certainly prepared to act for anyone regardless of their political beliefs. His four clients are, politically speaking, very different. Cepeda is a left-wing populist, Cade a right-wing businessman with ties to the oil industry, Stannard a social liberal and Furman another businessman but a man with few political ideas even though he is anxious for a political career. Cade is hoping to win the Senate seat being vacated by Sam Hastings, who is not merely a former client of Pete's but also a personal friend. Hastings holds environmentalist views which are diametrically opposed to Cade's pro-business opinions, and Pete suspects that his friend may have come under pressure to stand down from the Senate. Pete is forced to take a hard look at himself and to decide whether (as his ex-wife Ellen and his former partner Wilfred believe) he owes his success to a lack of principles. The film came out in 1986, a time when America was just starting to recover from the trauma of the Watergate scandal of the previous decade. Although many (principally Republicans) believed that Ronald Reagan, who had just won his second successive landslide victory, had restored the American people's faith in their political system, there were many others (not only Democrats but also many foreign observers) who felt that the American people had been the victims of a gigantic political con-trick, that they had been induced to vote for Reagan by a slick political marketing campaign. A film about a slick political marketing man therefore seemed very topical in the mid-eighties. The film was directed by Sidney Lumet, and could have been an opportunity to do for the American political system what Lumet had done for the American media in the brilliantly satirical "Network" around a decade earlier. Unfortunately, it never really works in the same way as "Network" had done, for a number of reasons. The first is the acting. "Network" had at its centre a towering performance from Peter Finch, well-supported by excellent contributions from William Holden and Faye Dunaway. There is nothing really comparable in "Power". Although Richard Gere is good in the earlier part of the film as the unscrupulous smooth operator, he seems less convincing later on when Pete rediscovers his principles. The supporting actors are not very memorable; there are some big names in the cast, but Julie Christie as Ellen, Gene Hackman as Wilfred and E. G. Marshall as Sam have all done much better things than this. Perhaps the best is Denzel Washington as Arnold Billing, Cade's ruthless public relations man. The second reason for the film's relative lack of success is that it never actually succeeds in convincing us that Pete really is all that unprincipled. He may not care very much whether his clients come from the left or right of the ideological spectrum, but we never actually see him do anything unethical until, ironically, after his supposed "conversion" when he supplies confidential information to his client's opponent. We see commercials he makes in support of Furman and Stannard, but both are very mild and defensive in tone. A really unscrupulous politician like Richard Nixon, notorious for his use of "dirty tricks" against opponents, would have sacked Pete from his campaign team for being a pussy. The third reason is that there are too many competing story lines. It would have made for a more dramatic and powerful film if Lumet and the scriptwriter David Himmelstein had concentrated on just one, preferably the Senatorial race in Ohio, which is the most important and most potentially interesting of the four stories. The Latin American storyline seems to be dropped quite early on- we never learn whether Cepeda becomes President of his country- but the Ohio story is continually interrupted as Pete jets off to Seattle or Santa Fe."Power" is not altogether a bad film. The problem is that it could have been so much better. The idea of a film examining political corruption, not just the corruption of those who seek to wield power through holding political office but also the corruption of those who seek to wield power by influencing public opinion, was a good one. It could have been the occasion for a brilliant film. Unfortunately, "Power" tries to be that film but falls some way short of what it could have been. 6/10

Sidney Lumet's "Power" makes an analysis on how political campaigns are made and the work of people behind it like Pete St. John (Richard Gere), a media consultant chosen to work for a unknown candidate for Ohio senate, the businessman Jerome Cade (J.T. Walsh) who is about to take the seat of an more experienced Senator (E.G. Marshall) longtime friend of Pete. Pete's unsure if this man will make the same good things his old friend did while as member of the Congress but he takes the challenge and accept the job.Pete will make things work out, after all he's the best man in his business, young, talented and ambitious with an enormous taste for the power (the biggest aphrodisiac of all, some might say). But, in this particular campaign he'll join forces with Arnold Billing (Denzel Washington), a unscrupulous public relations who doesn't trust Pete and vice versa, and while working on promoting the new Senator, Pete investigates Billing trying to figure out what he and his associates have to hide from him. And of course the other side will do the same and that will give something to St. John reflect on his way of living and the way he conduces things (e.g. the manipulated video campaign of a Latin politician trying to save a girl during a protest; Pete was behind everything telling how the man should act in order to get sympathy from his voters). Luckily, on his side there's old friends like his ex-wife, the journalist Ellen (Julie Christie) and his former partner in business Wilfrid (Gene Hackman), now a drunken, decadent and highly ethical man who no longer makes good campaigns for his clients. David Himmelstein's screenplay fascinates us for showing the importance of a candidate's image and how influential media consultants can be in doing marvelous (and totally manipulated) campaigns. One small thing makes a huge difference in getting elected or not. "Power" has a realistic view of money and power and how they work together but there's a catch in the final moments that almost ruins the film. This realism which was working quite well succumbed to a happy ending where good idealism and honesty wins over the power of corruption, lies and deceptions, quite rare back in the 1980's and even more now in the 21st century, specially when it comes to politics. The movie denied itself with this; the writer's rhetoric failed at this point but it's nothing so harmful, it's just a little contradiction. However, the script has another problem, this one concerning the motivations behind the characters, what they were fighting for, what they were up against; there's too many sides (Cade's working for powerful people like him, who seems to be dealing with oil from the Arabs; the idealist junior candidate played by Matt Salinger wants to protect the environment; and there's another one but we cannot care about him); it was all confusing, muddled, quite complicated to follow everyone and everything. To give an example of another work directed by Sidney Lumet on a similar subject of media that worked better with these side issues "Network" was terrific and effectively great, we all knew which character was standing for and why.Just like "Network" this also has big names in the casting but the performances pale in comparison. Gere is quite comfortable in the main role, even though most critics argue he wasn't a good choice; I enjoyed him playing this kind of guy who seems to be a villain but it turns out he's not that bad; Christie is good; Hackman was very underused and Beatrice Straight was quite distractive as the old Senator's wife. The movie offers a highlight to Denzel Washington playing a tough type to crack, the real antagonist even though this is not being the usual hero versus villain film. By far, Denzel is the one you can't take your eyes off for the whole thing. Highly watchable for what the story has to say, the lessons some of us can learn with elections and how illusionary they can be. "Power" indeed is a powerful drama. 9/10

If the only sex you've ever had is with a farm animal, then the tag line for this movie is probably still misleading.This is by far one of the most boring movies I've had the pleasure to try and watch lately. I found the DVD lying around at my friend's house, and I made the sad mistake of not burning it.I am unable to tell any details without spoiling the movie because there are only about 5 details to this movie. Just try to imagine someone making a movie about things on c-span only the fictional movie is 10 times less interesting than the most boring debate on c-span.I think there is a conspiracy somewhere in this movie, but I was unable to tell exactly what it was after I gouched my eyeballs out and threw them at Richard Gere.

Everyone involved (and the audience) should seek out "The Candidate" to see how good this movie could have been. What happened the South American story? What were Julie Christie and Kate Capshaw thinking to allow their roles to be cardboard cut-outs. Up to now I have liked every Gene Hackman performance and/or movie. He was either disinterested (which I can hardly believe) or dreadfully miscast. I have also liked and defended Richard Gere (and been vilified for it). But here he had no "power". He was never intimidating and only occasionally persuasive. All in all I was very disappointed. I really expected much more from this director and cast. If you can't find "The Candidate" watch "Wag the dog" again or even "Bulworth".