As a re-make of "The Day of The Jackal" this movie succeeds in updating the setting without completely destroying the character. As so many re-makes tend to do. Here we find the historical and geo-political context totally changed but there is successfully conveyed the sense of an urgent hunt for one dangerous, faceless force of doom.
The technical aspects are among the best features. The cannon is for me the true star of the movie. Willis's multiple identities make for the other star feature. Also his portrayal of the psychopath's obsessional attention to detail and determination to make his lethal "toy" fulfil it's dreadful promise. Check out that look in his eyes in the climactic park scene as he wiggles his "joy" stick.
These things allowed, there is one blundering and grossly offensive feature. Gere's character could have been any terrorist from an imaginary outfit or assassin or foreign agent, who happened to know about the "Jackal". Why make him a "hero" out of the IRA? This is yet another manifestation of Hollywood's liberal mind-set dabbling in things of which they have not the glimmering of an understanding. As a UK citizen I have seen plenty of IRA and UDA thugs dragged out into the daylight. Fat tattooed men with twisted faces, scruffy facial hair and mullet hair-cuts. There never was one who could by the remotest stretch of the imagination be likened to a suave sex-bomb like Richard Gere. When one of the FBI agents suggests that his "war" took the lives of women and children rather than "British" soldiers he declares that he never got involved in such things. That is a statement every bit as ridiculous as if it were uttered by one of Osama Bin Laden's lieutenants! Can you imagine Richard Gere at a meeting planning the Manchester city centre bombing, saying to his "colleagues" "Aw, I'm sorry, I 'll have to sit it out on this one, chaps, this isn't my way of fighting a war." And, incidentally, Ulster has been a constitutional part of the British Isles for five hundred years ( twice as long as the U.S.A has existed ). Please note, Hollywood, the Northern Irish ARE British. Moreover, the use of the expression "British" to refer to the English ( which would have been what he meant ) is a uniquely American error.
There are also numerous "howlers" in the story. For example, if destroying the plans is so important to the assassin, why does he go off and leave them laying about to be discovered? When the gangster falls dead in the car-park, what happens to the body? Where did Gere's pistol come from in the final scenes? Why did the Jackal wait for the FBI to arrive before opening fire on the intended victim? Why, when they knew who it was and that he was there, did they not simply postpone the opening? Why were there no police or security arriving in the Metro station ( apart from the one killed )?
These things aside, a good set of cliff-hangers and one excellent and novel twist, a play on our assumptions, at the end.
The technical aspects are among the best features. The cannon is for me the true star of the movie. Willis's multiple identities make for the other star feature. Also his portrayal of the psychopath's obsessional attention to detail and determination to make his lethal "toy" fulfil it's dreadful promise. Check out that look in his eyes in the climactic park scene as he wiggles his "joy" stick.
These things allowed, there is one blundering and grossly offensive feature. Gere's character could have been any terrorist from an imaginary outfit or assassin or foreign agent, who happened to know about the "Jackal". Why make him a "hero" out of the IRA? This is yet another manifestation of Hollywood's liberal mind-set dabbling in things of which they have not the glimmering of an understanding. As a UK citizen I have seen plenty of IRA and UDA thugs dragged out into the daylight. Fat tattooed men with twisted faces, scruffy facial hair and mullet hair-cuts. There never was one who could by the remotest stretch of the imagination be likened to a suave sex-bomb like Richard Gere. When one of the FBI agents suggests that his "war" took the lives of women and children rather than "British" soldiers he declares that he never got involved in such things. That is a statement every bit as ridiculous as if it were uttered by one of Osama Bin Laden's lieutenants! Can you imagine Richard Gere at a meeting planning the Manchester city centre bombing, saying to his "colleagues" "Aw, I'm sorry, I 'll have to sit it out on this one, chaps, this isn't my way of fighting a war." And, incidentally, Ulster has been a constitutional part of the British Isles for five hundred years ( twice as long as the U.S.A has existed ). Please note, Hollywood, the Northern Irish ARE British. Moreover, the use of the expression "British" to refer to the English ( which would have been what he meant ) is a uniquely American error.
There are also numerous "howlers" in the story. For example, if destroying the plans is so important to the assassin, why does he go off and leave them laying about to be discovered? When the gangster falls dead in the car-park, what happens to the body? Where did Gere's pistol come from in the final scenes? Why did the Jackal wait for the FBI to arrive before opening fire on the intended victim? Why, when they knew who it was and that he was there, did they not simply postpone the opening? Why were there no police or security arriving in the Metro station ( apart from the one killed )?
These things aside, a good set of cliff-hangers and one excellent and novel twist, a play on our assumptions, at the end.