The Jackal

Starring: Richard Gere, Bruce Willis, Sidney Poitier, Diane Venora, Mathilda May, J.K. Simmons, Jack Black, Tess Harper, Daniel Dae Kim
Directed by: Michael Canton-Jones
Rating: R
Action, Drama
1997

Times Seen:
Tim: 2

Summary: An imprisoned IRA agent (Richard Gere) is freed to help track down a deadly assassin (Bruce Willis).

Review:

Tim: The Jackal is just an overall forgettable film. It's decent, mildly entertaining, has some worthwhile cast members, but the film simply doesn't hold up. It doesn't help that it's an inferior remake of The Day of the Jackal. This is a harmless movie, but there are so many great action movies from the 1990s, this one is totally obscured by far better ones.

The basic premise is a good one because it borrowed from a better film and a popular book. There's a mysterious assassin, known only by the code name, Jackal. He's going to assassinate a famous figure and there's a full press out to stop him. The premise is simple but effective. It's fun to see all the different law enforcement agencies throw everything they have to catch one mysterious, brilliant killer. That aspect of the film is one of the strongest. Unfortunately, none of this is as interesting as the movie thinks it is. Director Michael Canton-Jones' film takes itself so seriously and the quality of every scene isn't up to par. The movie feels overly long at 2 hours, 4 minutes. It's simply not interesting enough to hold our attention.

The cast is interesting. Bruce Willis has the flashy role of the titular Jackal. It's hard to know what to think of his performance. He uses quite a few disguises in the film. Unfortunately, sometimes this causes Willis to look pretty ridiculous. Willis is really good at doing his action hero thing, but this film called upon him to do quite a few different things in the role. He's playing one character who molds his personality to fit whomever he is pretending to be. Unfortunately, Willis' talent doesn't stretch far enough for this to be believable. He often appears silly and inauthentic in his performance. I applaud him for trying something outside of his comfort zone, but it's not a great performance. Richard Gere is also really an interesting case study. On the one hand, I loved his performance- the accent, the coolness of his character- his looks- he just seemed believable in the role. I really liked much of his performance. However, the weird thing is that while he seemed cool, I never actually cared about his character. The emotional connection was missing. Gere gives a good performance, but he's simply not able to connect with the audience to the extent he needed. Sidney Poitier is too good for a film like this, but he delivers a strong supporting performance. You just wish he had more to do. Diane Verona seemed out of her element. I didn't really buy her in this role. I loved seeing J.K. Simmons in a small role and Jack Black was okay, but too over-the-top. The cast of this film had some big names in it, but director Canton-Jones isn't able to fully leverage them.

Remakes generally aren't a good idea, and this is yet another attempt that comes in worse than the original film. The Jackal is a harmless movie, though, because it's so totally forgettable. Yes, there are a few decent moments sprinkled throughout the film, but this movie is surprisingly bland. There's a ton of scenes of Willis preparing for the assassination, but they've lost the intriguing edge that was present in the original. This is a movie that doesn't quite know what to do with itself- to adhere closer to the original, or to completely go in its own direction. The result is a film that is caught in the middle, that features too many starts and stops and ends up not really being one thing or the other. This is still a decent movie, but that's simply not good enough.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Day of the Jackal, Red Corner, Assassins