THE JACKAL Review by David Wilcock (C)1998
Running Time: 124 minutes (2 hours 4 minutes) Starring Bruce Willis and Richard Gere Directed by Michael Caton-Jones
A remake of The Day of the Jackal (1973), Michael Caton-Jones (Rob Roy, 1995) violent, though occasionally entertaining film is pretty average. Bruce Willis plays an assasin simply known as The Jackal. His latest job is to kill an important member of the U.S.A government, and F.B.I agent Cater Preston (Sidney Poitier) and an ex-terrorist Declan Mulqueen (Gere) try to stop him, helped by a russion major Valentina Koslova (played well by Diane Verona) It's a simple cat and mouse chase, featuring lots of 'toys for the boys' (i.e a very big cannon, loads of guns) and a few twists along the way.
Although the film is fun for the first 20 minutes, with Willis putting on a variety of disguises, much like Val Kilmer in The Saint (1996) but when Gere is introduced into the film, it goes rapidly downhill. Quite frankly, it's Gere who ruins the whole picture. His Irish accent is terribly unconvincing, and his character dull, and not intresting at all. In fact, the audience will probably warm more to The Jackal, who is supposed to be the bad guy! Willis is great fun at being evil, seemingly having a good time in the film. His character is just not evil enough, though, although I doubt Willis could ever pull off pure evil, he's got a 'good guy' image attached to him. If someone like Christopher Walken (Batman Returns, 1992) or Al Pacino (The Devils Advocate, 1997) was playing him, I have a feeling the Jackal character would have had that extra edge.
Poitier is pretty much on auto-pilot as the F.B.I agent, with a pretty much average performance. There's nothing outstanding with his performance, yet there's nothing really bad with it either. However, Verona is fun as a russian major, with a good accent, and also some excellent acting. She deserves to be in a film better than this, as she is pretty much wasted here (like Charlzie Theron in The Devils Advocate, 1997) She defintely has the best performance in the film.
Michael Caton-Jones direction is average, although some scenes do have some tension, such as a tense situation featuring the Jackal and Valentina inside a house. But, like most of the cast, he seems to be on autopilot, directing most of the scenes in a safe fashion. He dosen't really attempt to pull off any tricks, he just directs the action. And that's the problem with the whole film, really. It plays it terrible safe. It dosen't attempt to try anything new, yet it dosen't really do anything wrong. This is stuck right in the middle of 'average' With only Verona, and to a certain extent, Willis having fun, The Jackal is actually less fun than it could of been.
The music is quite good, however, usually re-inforcing what is on screen. The effects are O.K also, including a quite good scene in a subway tunnel. But, generally, The Jackal is one of the most average films I've seen. I can't heavely fault it, yet I can't really commend it either. Resonably entertaining, average Hollywood fare.
OVERALL RATING=**1/2 out of *****
REVIEW BY DAVID WILCOCK
DAVID WILCOCK david.wilcock@btinternet.com Visit the Wilcock Movie Page! http://wilcockmovie.home.ml.org -OR- http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/9061
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