Review: The Jackal (1997) Rating: 2.0 stars (out of 4.0) ******************************** Key to rating system: 2.0 stars Debatable 2.5 stars Some people may like it 3.0 stars I liked it 3.5 stars I am biased in favor of the movie 4.0 stars I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out ********************************* A Movie Review by David Sunga
Directed by: Michael Caton-Jones
Written by: Chuck Pfarrer (But actually a remake of the screenplay ‘The Day of the Jackal' by Kenneth Ross)
Starring: Bruce Willis, Diane Venora, Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier
Ingredients: Gatling gun, plot to kill a politician
Synopsis: A hit man who goes by the name of ‘Jackal' (Bruce Willis) is hired to kill a politician who is to make a speech from a podium in front of a hospital. Instead of staking out a sniper position on a nearby building, Jackal gets fancy. He flies to Quebec and purchases a giant Gatling gun (a swiveling machine gun with several barrels that can fire thousands of rounds a minute). Of course, as a foundation for the gun, he purchases a super strong metal alloy stand and a minivan, plus special expensive uranium bullets and a remote control computer device that enables him to use his ball-point pen as a joystick. He also sprays special poison on the door of the van in case anyone tries to get in. Finally, Jackal purchases a yacht so he can sail the Gatling gun into the United States undetected. Typical of the logic the authorities use to catch the Jackal are statements like: "There's a 3000 mile border between Canada and the US. The criminal could be anywhere! Hmm. Why don't we try checking the Chicago Yacht Club?" So they send 30 agents to the yacht club, and sure enough, there's the Jackal, and a gun battle ensues. Will the authorities catch Jackal before he commits murder?
Opinion: The writing often makes or breaks a movie. Good movies are able to ensnare you in the plot, until you're on the edge of your seat and committed to seeing the movie through to its conclusion. Not-so-good movies consist of two or three action-packed scenes introduced by irrational jumps in logic and connected by long stretches of pointless wandering around. In ‘The Jackal' the talents of stars Poitier, Willis, and Gere, and Venora are not enough to rescue a poorly written script, although the two or three action scenes are good, if you can wait around long enough for them.
Reviewed by David Sunga November 15, 1997
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews