Starring Wesley Snipes, Diane Lane, Alan Alda and Daniel Benzali Directed by Dwight Little Rated R, with profanity, nudity and graphic violence Running time 108 minutes We give this film a rating of 5 out of 10

(April 18, 1997) -- Perhaps they should post a sign outside our nation's most famous residence: "Caution: Having sex with an occupant of the White House can be hazardous to your health."

Such would seem to be the lesson we may have gleaned from Absolute Power earlier this year and, now, from Murder at 1600, a stolid and plodding whodunit that makes up in length and illogic what it lacks in suspense.

Wesley Snipes plays Harlan Regis, a Washington, D.C., homicide detective first glimpsed foiling a gun-wielding suicide attempt in the middle of a D.C. street in broad daylight: "Third bureaucrat this week," someone mutters.

While trying to figure out how to keep his apartment from falling victim to eminent domain courtesy of an Interstate Commerce Commission expansion, Regis and his partner, Stengel (Dennis Miller), are called to the site of a murder. The catch: The young woman's body is found in a restroom in the White House.

She's been stabbed to death shortly after having sex and that's about all Regis can find out. Why? Because the bullet-headed chief of the Secret Service, the appropriately named Spikings (Daniel Benzali), has determined that most of the information about the killing is too classified for a simple cop to see.

Indeed, when Regis and Stengel arrive at the murdered woman's apartment, they find that even her photo scrapbooks have been cleaned out. Spikings has the cops on a short leash, held by one of his agents, Nina Chance (Diane Lane). When a suspect is found and arrested, Regis is suspicious at the convenience of it all. Eventually, so is Chance; she rebels against Spikings' control and begins to help Regis as he widens his investigation to include the president's playboy son.

But the script, by Wayne Beach and David Hodgin, has so many illogical twists -- and takes so long to get to the point without actually generating tension -- that it has lost the audience by the end of the first hour. And there's almost another whole hour to go.

Among other hard-to-swallow items: Regis supposedly has stumbled upon a top-secret conspiracy, tied to issues of national security. He is suddenly No. 1 on the hit parade of a group of killers. Yet he keeps showing up for work at the police station everyday, in broad daylight, and keeps conducting his investigation out in the open, minus any apparent threat to his life.

It's also questionable how, near the end, Regis is able to make his way through the corridors of a massive complicated building he has never seen, on deadline, and still manages to find his quarry with minutes to spare -- while battling bad guys at every turn.

Snipes, always an intriguing presence, is hard-pressed to maintain a semblance of interest in this plot. Diane Lane looks happy to be able to play something other than a mom for a change, and actually makes a credible action hero (her Secret Service agent was an Olympic sharpshooter before being recruited into government service). Alan Alda and Daniel Benzali affect airs of importance and the sinister, respectively, as a national security adviser and the head of the Secret Service.

Murder at 1600 isn't terrible, just terribly slow. By the end, you'll care only that it may never end, let alone that the killer will actually be found.