A remake of DAY OF THE JACKAL, I understand the critics didn't
like it. Tough. I like it.
First, it is a remake with a difference. Instead of the sort that is just
new actors doing the same script, this one is set in modern times,
and involves a whole other bunch of players. Several memorable
events from the original film, are played out in this one also, but
in a different way.
The target is different, American, and there is a real major last
minute twist on that one. The burial scene at the end is almost
the same.
Regarding the original movie, there were attempts on De Gaulle's
life, and the initial scenes are accurate enough. From the time
a meeting of rightist generals decides to hire an outside
assassin, everything is fiction. There was never a mystery
assassin called The Jackal, or if there was he wasn't in on this.
The more recent Carlos the Jackal has no bearing on any of
this, and his identity was well known, and he was a terrorist
not a for hire assassin.
The movie stars Bruce Willis as The Jackal, and Sydney
Poitier as the American FBI agent whose attempt, with
a Russian police woman, to arrest a Russian gangster for
an American murder or something like that, starts the whole
thing off.
Bruce Willis gets an Erikson Award for versatility, comparing
his performance here, and other places he stays more or less
in character, with his performance as the hen pecked husband
in Death Becomes Her.
I haven't actually printed up any Awards, but since I am the
only person on the committee, my word here establishes it.
