It's easy to understand why Bruce Willis and Richard Gere were drawn to "The Jackal." Willis gets to don all kinds of disguises and Gere gets to feign an Irish accent. Actors love stuff like that.
And it's easy to understand why audiences will be drawn to "The Jackal." Willis and Gere both have large followings, and for some of us who are a bit older, third-billed Sidney Poitier just doesn't show up in movies often enough anymore.
But the film itself wastes no time in letting us know that this will be an in-your-face exercise. The opening plays like an industrial-music video, and when it gets to the screenwriting credit, we're told that the film is "based on the motion picture screenplay 'The Day of the Jackal' by Kenneth Ross."
No mention of the fact that the 1973 movie was based on a novel by Frederick Forsyth!
The opening sequence is a violent, profane standoff in a Moscow nighclub, followed by a scene where a man sitting in conference with several other people gets an ax in his head! (Someone has been sitting through too many showings of "The Untouchables" — anyone remember Robert De Niro taking a swing at someone's head with a baseball bat?)
Subtlety is obviously not going to be this film's strong suit, and it's borne out by the level of over-the-top gore and ugly, brutal violence that follows. (That's entertainment?)
What's more, the story strays considerably from "The Day of the Jackal." That film was a documentary-style yarn about a cold-blooded assassin's meticulous preparation for an assignment to take out the president of France in 1963. Those scenes were juxtaposed with the detective work used to track down the killer.
This time around, the setting is contemporary, the target is the director of the FBI and the "The Jackal" (Willis) is not just an icy killer — he enjoys torturing his victims. (In one scene he shoots off someone's arm and watches him run around before killing him.)
And the detective work gives way to an entirely different plot, which has an Irish terrorist (Gere) being released from prison to help find the Jackal. They share a history and revenge is Gere's primary motive for helping, as he joins forces with the FBI's deputy director (Poitier) and a Russian intelligence officer (Diane Venora).
"The Jackal" is directed with a heavy hand (and a bigger-is-better attitude) by Michael Caton-Jones ("Rob Roy," "This Boy's Life") from a script by Chuck Pfarrer ("Navy SEALS," "Hard Target").
Why they even credit the "Day of the Jackal" movie as inspiration is a big question mark, since the two films could hardly be more dissimilar. The leaps in logic here are astonishingly dumb, and movie cliches abound (including the venerable killer-who-wouldn't-die at the conclusion).
To his credit, Gere is more animated than usual, though his accent seems to come and go. But Willis is less animated than usual (if that's possible), apparently mistaking "brooding" for "sinister." Poitier has little to do and is wasted in his role. Verona, however, makes the most of her Russian agent, complete with scarred face and feminist anger.
"The Jackal" is rated R for considerable violence, gore, profanity and vulgarity.