IN THE LINE OF FIRE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1993 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Eastwood's Oscars have given him the
clout to make better films, but he is back in a glorified
Dirty Harry thriller. Besides a stand-out performance by
John Malkovich, this outing offers little new and a lot that
is old. Still, it is competently made and so is enjoyable
for 126 minutes. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
In a suspense film, higher stakes do not make for more suspense. That was the mistake that the James Bond series made up through MOONRAKER. They started with villains trying to sabotage one missile or just to embarrass the British Secret Service, and at the same time get a decoded. As the series progressed, you eventually got to villains trying to precipitate nuclear war or to destroy all life on Earth. But the best stories had the least flamboyant villains and concentrated on credibility. I mention this because while IN THE LINE OF FIRE, with its psychotic trying to kill the President, does not have an absurdly exaggerated villain, it is starting to get up there. This is essentially a Dirty Harry film with the stakes upped a little. This is also an anti-violence film like UNFORGIVEN, but it is an Eastwood sort of anti-violence film. That means that the good guys who survive feel angst over the violence afterward.
Frank Horrigan (played by Clint Eastwood) is an agent for the Secret Service. His independence and his insubordinate attitude get him in trouble with the people for whom he works. And he is just a bit sexist, but for the rare woman who can see beyond the attitude problem he is really a diamond in the rough. In other words, he is just like a Dirty Harry of the Secret Service. The one difference is that Horrigan was the Secret Service agent protecting--or at least trying to protect--Kennedy in Dallas. Twenty-nine (or thirty-three?) years later, he is still in the Secret Service trying to protect the President. But now there is a new assassin who wants to kill the current President. He has nothing special against the Chief Executive, but he really likes the idea of killing a President.
First the bad news. In spite of good advance critical comment, this is a very familiar, if not out-and-out hackneyed, script. The conscienceless killer feels impelled to call the policeman (or Secret service agent) and unburden his neuroses on the man looking for him. It adds to the thrill of the hunt, but it has been done many times since NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY or even the real-life Jack the Ripper murders. And, yes, there is an attractive woman, Lilly Raines (played by Rene Russo, who looks a lot like Blair Brown) in the Secret Service, and she goes from disliking the obnoxious Eastwood character to feeling sorry for him to bedding him. The plot also has some real stretches of credibility. And it has more than its share of violence, including two scenes that could be disturbing to those who are particularly susceptible being disturbed by movies.
So Clint's Oscars have not earned him better scripts, but at least he gets one heck of a good actor as the assassin. John Malkovich, who usually plays people either icy or irritating, gives a flesh-crawling performance as an assassin who is both. This is a polished and suspenseful action film, perhaps a little more so than Eastwood's pre-UNFORGIVEN films. Now I recognize that I am assuming that Eastwood was not just an actor on this film but actually had much of the artistic control. That may be a false assumption, but given his recent Oscars, I suspect it is not.
The film is directed by Wolfgang Petersen, who directed the exceptional war film DAS BOOT and the unexceptional science fiction film ENEMY MINE. The score is by Ennio Morricone, who built his reputation on Eastwood's "Man with No Name" films. It's worth seeing as a reasonably crafted suspense film, but a month from now I will barely remember it, while Eastwood's OUTLAW JOSEY WALES and UNFORGIVEN will still be standing out in my memory. I give this one a very flat +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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