The Jackal
2/4
Starring: Richard Gere, Bruce Willis, Sidney Poitier, Diane Venora, Mathilda May
Rated R for Strong Violence and Language
"The Jackal" is essentially one long chase movie. An assassin who can change identities at will is being pursued by the FBI, but he's one step ahead. It follows both plotlines, but director Michael Caton-Jones isn't able to generate an acceptable amount of tension, mainly because the script by Chuck Pfarrer is so weak.
FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston (Poitier) and Russian cop Valentina Koslova (Venora) are in Russia taking down a vicious mobster. The mobster is killed in the process, and his brother Terek Murad (David Hayman) puts a hit on every FBI agent, more for Preston and Koslova. To show the Americans that he means business, he plans to assassinate the director of the FBI (John Cunningham). Murad hires The Jackal (Willis), an assassin so good and so secretive that almost no one has seen him. The FBI is on the case, and the only one they know who has seen him is Declan Mulqueen (Gere), an imprisoned IRA sharpshooter. They'll have to trust him to take down The Jackal.
The main fault with the film is that it's extremely dumb. The characters either have impossible leaps of intuition or astonishing acts of stupidity. There's no middle ground. The former is most egregious in the first half, which, in addition to how the film is edited, causes the plot to make little sense. The second half is better in that regard, although it doesn't help matters very much. The story is still lame and the direction by Caton-Jones, who previous feature was the grossly overrated "Rob Roy," is bland.
The performances are, at best, mediocre. Richard Gere, an actor who's better than the "pretty boy" roles he kept getting, is adequate as Declan, although he's saddled with the same problem that hampers most actors in his situation: his role is poorly written. Bruce Willis, playing a bad guy for once, is ineffective. Make-up and a fake paunch do little to hide the fact that it's Bruce Willis. Willis is a good actor, but he's too famous to take on a role like this. Sidney Poitier, in his final theatrical film (at least for now), brings a dose of class, but it begs the question why an actor of his talent would accept a role in a movie this mediocre. One hopes that he was paid a hell of a lot of money. Diane Venora, an exceptional actress who deserved (but did not get) an Oscar nomination for her performance in "Heat," is pretty bad. Either it's her Russian accent or her lack of interest in performing in this movie, but the result is just the same. The only one who makes an impression is Mathilda May, who plays Declan's former lover Isabella, who has also seen The Jackal. Despite having the same dialogue as the rest of the cast, she grabs our attention and sympathy more than anyone else.
Michael Caton-Jones, a Scottish filmmaker, tries to liven things up with astonishing acts of brutality. It doesn't work. We have to be involved in the story for that to make an impact. That's not the case here, so it just seems over-the-top. The cinematography by Karl Walter Lindenlaub, who has done exceptional work in the past (credits include "Black Book," "Ninja Assassin," and "Independence Day"), is incredibly stale.
It's not terrible. The action scenes are moderately interesting and it's at least watchable, but it is depressingly mediocre. With a plot and cast like this, we have a right to expect more. A lot more.
Starring: Richard Gere, Bruce Willis, Sidney Poitier, Diane Venora, Mathilda May
Rated R for Strong Violence and Language
"The Jackal" is essentially one long chase movie. An assassin who can change identities at will is being pursued by the FBI, but he's one step ahead. It follows both plotlines, but director Michael Caton-Jones isn't able to generate an acceptable amount of tension, mainly because the script by Chuck Pfarrer is so weak.
FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston (Poitier) and Russian cop Valentina Koslova (Venora) are in Russia taking down a vicious mobster. The mobster is killed in the process, and his brother Terek Murad (David Hayman) puts a hit on every FBI agent, more for Preston and Koslova. To show the Americans that he means business, he plans to assassinate the director of the FBI (John Cunningham). Murad hires The Jackal (Willis), an assassin so good and so secretive that almost no one has seen him. The FBI is on the case, and the only one they know who has seen him is Declan Mulqueen (Gere), an imprisoned IRA sharpshooter. They'll have to trust him to take down The Jackal.
The main fault with the film is that it's extremely dumb. The characters either have impossible leaps of intuition or astonishing acts of stupidity. There's no middle ground. The former is most egregious in the first half, which, in addition to how the film is edited, causes the plot to make little sense. The second half is better in that regard, although it doesn't help matters very much. The story is still lame and the direction by Caton-Jones, who previous feature was the grossly overrated "Rob Roy," is bland.
The performances are, at best, mediocre. Richard Gere, an actor who's better than the "pretty boy" roles he kept getting, is adequate as Declan, although he's saddled with the same problem that hampers most actors in his situation: his role is poorly written. Bruce Willis, playing a bad guy for once, is ineffective. Make-up and a fake paunch do little to hide the fact that it's Bruce Willis. Willis is a good actor, but he's too famous to take on a role like this. Sidney Poitier, in his final theatrical film (at least for now), brings a dose of class, but it begs the question why an actor of his talent would accept a role in a movie this mediocre. One hopes that he was paid a hell of a lot of money. Diane Venora, an exceptional actress who deserved (but did not get) an Oscar nomination for her performance in "Heat," is pretty bad. Either it's her Russian accent or her lack of interest in performing in this movie, but the result is just the same. The only one who makes an impression is Mathilda May, who plays Declan's former lover Isabella, who has also seen The Jackal. Despite having the same dialogue as the rest of the cast, she grabs our attention and sympathy more than anyone else.
Michael Caton-Jones, a Scottish filmmaker, tries to liven things up with astonishing acts of brutality. It doesn't work. We have to be involved in the story for that to make an impact. That's not the case here, so it just seems over-the-top. The cinematography by Karl Walter Lindenlaub, who has done exceptional work in the past (credits include "Black Book," "Ninja Assassin," and "Independence Day"), is incredibly stale.
It's not terrible. The action scenes are moderately interesting and it's at least watchable, but it is depressingly mediocre. With a plot and cast like this, we have a right to expect more. A lot more.
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