At their most overpowering, modern high-tech thrillers sometimes resemble huge electronic mazes in which the actors and audience, like trapped white rats, race blindly toward the exit. Lights keep flashing, bombs keep going off and the rats keep running — to little avail or point. Compared with the best thrillers of a generation or two ago, these new movies are often spectacular but superficial: high on pace, violence and gloss, puny on logic, coherence or character.
A good example of this deterioration is “The Jackal”: a lavish but often senseless remake-update of one of 1973’s best thrillers, “The Day of the Jackal.” In this modern “Jackal,” Bruce Willis plays the title character, a mysterious state-of-the-art assassin who specializes in multimillion-dollar hits and is such a master of disguise, he can travel the globe undetected and change his identity and credentials within minutes. Hired by a crazed Russian mob chief, supposedly to murder the director of the FBI, Willis’ Jackal sneaks across Europe, into Canada and into the U.S. in a variety of disguises — baffling and outwitting the top cops of two continents: FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston (Sidney Poitier) and Russian intelligence officer Valentina Koslova (Diane Venora).
The Jackal also eludes a more dangerous foe: ace IRA rifleman Declan Mulqueen (Richard Gere), who knows the killer by face and has been sprung from prison as a Hannibal Lechter-style inside expert. But, despite all these resources, nobody can halt the Jackal’s relentless progress toward his kill date and his $70 million payday.
Whoa. Right away, you should guess this movie is in trouble. In the original film, based on Frederick Forsyth’s prototypical suspense novel, would have been angry, too.)the target was French President Charles De Gaulle, and The Jackal was played by Edward Fox, an actor familiar to ’70s art film fans (for “The Go Between”), but relatively unknown to the public. Fox was perfect in the part: icy, superficially charming, many-faced, ruthless and unstoppable — and also the sort of man who might blend in anywhere in Western Europe.
But Bruce Willis? (Or any action superstar?) Some major movie actors, like Kevin Spacey or John Cusack, have the knack of blending into the backgrounds of their movies, of seeming almost inconspicuous. But is there anybody out there who can’t recognize or react to someone like Willis almost immediately, no matter what wild wig or accent he puts on? Willis has something more than star recognition. He has an air of almost instant familiarity. Even if you’ve only seen him for a few minutes, you may feel as if you’ve known him for years. That trademark waggish tough-guy smirk and easygoing manner come through under any hairdo. Because of this, a lot of the fun we might take in his various identity switches and disguises (like the pleasure of watching one of the virtuoso multi-part performances of Peter Sellers or Alec Guinness) is lost.
Willis does show actor’s range here (though not as much as the chameleonic Val Kilmer in “The Saint”). And it’s mildly amusing to watch him run around in stringy blond wigs and mustaches. But they’re still transparent disguises, further compromised by over-acting. And in this movie, where Willis plays a shadowy pro killer who depends on anonymity, he’s doubly obvious.
If casting a major personality star like Willis as an anonymous-looking killer is a mistake, it’s hardly the only one. “The Jackal,” directed by Michael Caton-Jones (“Memphis Belle,” “Rob Roy”) and written by Chuck Pfarrer (“Navy SEALS”), is an almost continuous misfire. This new movie takes a classic thriller — whose strength lay in a mix of documentary-like detail, picturesque backdrops and knifelike tension, and a truly fascinating cat-and-mouse duel between the bravura killer and the plodding French detective (Michel Lonsdale as Lebel) on his trail — throws away the quality and serves up the usual sentimental bloody improbable mess.
How can we buy even the movie’s initial premise: that a crazed Russian mob chief would retaliate for the death of his brother by spending $70 million to assassinate an American public figure? Screenwriter Pfarrer, who helped write “Tombstone,” seems to have conceived the movie as a high-tech gunfight at the O.K. Corral, with the Russian Mafia as the Clanton family.
In “The Day of the Jackal,” we could accept the plot hook because De Gaulle was a frequent assassination target, notorious for putting himself repeatedly in harm’s way. But here, the whole scheme is loco from the start. Why couldn’t the government just tell the FBI director to hide for a few days, instead of appearing on an outdoor dais with the first lady at a televised charity rally?
“The Jackal” has a few surprises up its sleeve, but nothing that makes much more sense than the rest of the picture. You may be bewildered to learn that the FBI and Russia’s intelligence agency — at least in this movie — are such intimate international partners that they fly to Moscow and Washington to make joint arrests. You may marvel at The Jackal’s method of crossing the U.S. border: piloting a yacht across Lake Michigan into Chicago (to the Chicago Yacht Club and the Burnham Park Yacht Club), where he’s spotted later on a pier by Mulqueen. And Mulqueen’s motivations are pretty extraordinary, too. They involve his old love, revolutionary Isabella (Mathilda May), and his new affection for the scar-faced moody Koslova.
You also will likely be amazed by the new ending: a wildly unlikely showdown between Mulqueen and The Jackal, with at least four different ladies in distress, a computerized remote-control cannon and three false climaxes.
A major point of interest in “The Day of the Jackal” lay in the contrast between The Jackal and the diligent, seemingly ordinary family man, Detective Lebel, who was tracking him down. By contrast, the new movie won’t settle for a non-young, non-heroic combatant for Willis’ Jackal; they won’t even let Poitier (who still looks handsome and heroic at 73) fill Lonsdale’s shoes. Instead, they invent an entirely new character — Gere’s IRA gunman — so they can pit one sexy, cocky hunk against another. And they even have The Jackal recklessly leave clues for Mulqueen, to prepare their final star-against-star battle.
Before he died earlier this year, Fred Zinnemann, who directed “The Day of the Jackal,” made strong objections about this new version. Zinnemann was right to complain. Where the old movie was taut and smart, this one is blowzy and goofy. Where the old movie raced, this one careens and crashes. Where the old movie complicated our responses, this one tries to milk them. Where the old Jackal was a fascinating villain with an intriguing opponent, this movie is just a duel of the poster boys. Better than “The Day of the Jackal,” this picture should have been called “The Twilight of the Thriller.”
(star) (star)
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones; written by Chuck Pfarrer, based on Kenneth Ross’ screenplay “The Day of the Jackal,” which was based on Frederick Forsyth’s novel; photographed by Karl Walter Lindenlaub; edited by Jim Clark; production designed by Michael White; music by Carter Burwell; produced by James Jacks, Sean Daniel, Caton-Jones, Kevin Jarre. A Universal Pictures release; opens Friday. Running time: 1:59. MPAA rating: R. Language, sensuality, nudity, violence.
THE CAST
The Jackal ……………………. Bruce Willis
Declan Mulqueen ……………….. Richard Gere
FBI Deputy Director Preston …….. Sidney Poitier
Valentina Koslova ……………… Diane Venora
Isabella ……………………… Mathilda May
Witherspoon …………………… J.K. Simmons
