Today for the first time on TV: You’ve never heard of this thriller starring 2 Hollywood legends – there’s a reason!

Just because of its star power with – especially – legendary Oscar winners like Anthony Hopkins (“The Silence of the Lambs”, “The Father”) and Al Pacino (“The Godfather 1-3”) on the cast list, “Call of the Power – In the Swamp of Corruption” should have the potential to become a box office hit, but the only directorial work to date from Texan TV screenwriter and producer Shintaro Shimosawa (“Fear The Walking Dead,” “The Following” ) was so weak that it only ran on a few screens in the US in 2016 and did not appear in this country at all only straight to home theater.

We would rather not recommend turning it on and explain why this is the case later in this text. For the curious, intrepid and/or painless among you “Call of Power – In the swamp of corruption” celebrates its German free TV premiere today, March 16, 2023 at 8:15 p.m. on Servus TV. The broadcaster offers a repeat that same evening at 1:15 am.

If you want to watch the movie despite our warning, but don’t want commercial breaks or discover this article after it airs, you can easily watch “The Call of Power” anytime at no extra cost as part of your Amazon Prime streaming subscription. video. At the same place, the movie is currently available on DVD and Blu-ray for very little money.

“Call of Power” on Servus TV: that’s the story

Ben Cahill (Josh Duhamel) is a wildly ambitious attorney who is assigned a case as big as it is delicate by his boss Charles Abrams (Al Pacino): a class action lawsuit against Arthur Denning (Anthony Hopkins), the powerful executive of a giant pharmaceutical company. He soon proves to be absolutely unscrupulous and unflinchingly walks over dead bodies to save the survival of his company and, above all, his own skin.

Like law firm chief Abrams, the young prosecutor begins to doubt his ability to bring the case to a close when Denning’s partner and Cahill’s secret informant, Emily Hynes (Malin Åkerman), is found dead. Because he once had a relationship with Hynes, he too becomes the target of the police and gets deeper and deeper into a seemingly insurmountable quagmire of intimidation, blackmail and corruption…

Only seven percent positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes

Even without Hollywood legends Pacino and Hopkins, The Force Call cast would be truly remarkable. The protagonists and his wife are “Transformers” and “Shotgun Wedding” star Josh Duhamel and Alice Eve from “Star Trek Into Darkness”. Other major roles are also provided by Glen Powell (“Top Gun 2: Maverick”, “Devotion”), Malin Åkerman (“Billions”), Julia Stiles from the thrillers “Bourne”, Byung-Hun Lee (“Squid Game”) , Skye P. Marshall (“Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina”) and Gregory Alan Williams, known for five seasons of “Baywatch”.

But no matter how much skill, talent and big names are gathered in front of the camera, you also have to give them the opportunity or the equipment to shine. The screenplay, written by horror writing duo Simon Boyes and Adam Mason (“Songbird”, “Hangman”) and directed by Shintaro Shimosawa, clearly wasn’t enough.

On Rotten Tomatoes, a popular aggregation site for English-language movie reviews, “Call of Power” rightly has a miserable seven percent positive reviews by professional critics. Even the two of a total of 29 journalists from the US and UK who expressed sympathy praise the film only very cautiously, insisting mainly on some visual advantages.

Most reviews, on the other hand, are scathing. Time and time again the story has been described as ridiculous, clumsy, not even remotely original or completely foreseeable. In addition, Shimosawa’s editing has been widely criticized, which has been described as unimaginative, schematic, and sometimes even incompetent in terms of pacing.

In conclusion, many wonder what two such high-profile mimes as Al Pacino and Anthony Hopkins could have seen in a script like this to justify their participation. A few say it plainly: “Call of Power” was clearly easy money for the two grandees, who have long secured their place in the ever-working Olympus and will not lose it just because of this pickle.

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