The Day of the Jackal (1973)

Too much of everything

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Avoid the awful 1997 remake. Neither Bruce Willis and Richard Gere can hold a candle to Edward Fox and Michael Lonsdale. This older movie is the real deal and an espionage classic in it's own right.The Day of the Jackal (1973) was directed by Fred Zinnemann. His previous film, A Man For All Seasons, won him two Oscars (best director, best picture) and four other Oscars including best screenplay. Zinnemann was at the top of his game when he made this movie.It is France in the 1960s. Algeria is still in French hands, but the local population clamours for independence. Opposing this is ultra right wing French nationalist terrorist cell, the OAS.In the movie one of its military leaders makes the ludicrous claim that the French have always lived there, revealing how pathologically disturbed right wing politics can be. The OAS has so far failed to stop the Algerian independence effort, both facts proving that while the OAS might be a formidable force, its leadership is totally xenophobic and somewhat eccentric; angry men out of touch.Their group however is made up of current and former French officers, so they are not without resources and manpower, some of whom are willing to die for their violent cause. After French President Charles de Gaulle moves to quite rightly hand back Algeria to the Algerians, the OAS of course see this as an outrageous betrayal and immediately set about hiring an assassin to murder him. Enter Edward Fox as wily hit-man "The Jackal". He cares naught for politics. He does however care about this one last retirement score, evading authorities and staying alive long enough to enjoy it. This is Edward Fox's best ever performance. The decision to cast him as the sharp eyed determined yet unassuming assassin is one of the great casting decisions in cinematic history. His every movement, expression, however subtle, tells you at a molecular level what this character was born to do - hide in the general population patiently and strike fast when the opportunity presents itself and then escape quietly before anyone is aware he was ever there. Fox has a small unassuming frame so as not to obviously intimidate anyone, where a larger man is more likely to be remembered. He looks like a Hitchcockian "every man"; he blends in smoother than coffee in milk, entering and leaving unnoticed everywhere he goes. He doesn't have Jimmy Stewart's height to stand out in a crowd, or Cary Grant's memorable dashing good looks. He is however nondescript and lethal.No one is ever able to give a description or remember his several fake names. Even the police overlook him. Fox's performance is just sublime. His calm demeanor and well groomed appearance belies his lethality and puts everyone quickly at ease; Always the consummate professional.The man assigned to hunt him down is the best detective France can muster, Commissioner Label played by bilingual French born Michael Lonsdale. This is one of the best mirror image portrayals of villain and hero in movie history; They are both as cunningly efficient and determined as each other. Based on Frederick Forsyth's novel of the same name, both he and director Zinnemann left no stone unturned in revealing how The Jackal prepares for the hit. It's the hit-man version An Actor Prepares. This is a brilliantly written, directed and acted film. If you like espionage films about assassins, this is the best movie around bar none. The Day of the Jackal (1973) deserves a criterion bluray edition. Please help that effort by emailing distributors if you can. Thank you.

Director Fred Zinnemann's "The Day of the Jackal" faithfully follows the Frederick Forsyth best-selling novel (The Dogs of War), which presents an unpretentious and precise reconstruction of the story. Zinnemann's low-key approach is a textbook example of how to make an exciting and sophisticated suspense film without relying on overblown action sequences or flashy visual effects. Zinnemann establishes a pace that is deliberate, but never boring.An underground terrorist group in France, the OAS, decide to hire a professional killer to assassinate French President Charles De Gaulle (Adrien Cayla-Legrand) after their previous attempts have failed. Their next move is to hire a professional assassin, an English hit man responsible for several high-profile assassinations. Charles Calthrop (Edward Fox) accepts the contract to assassinate the President, and takes on the alias of 'Jackal'. The Jackal methodically prepares to put his plan into action: gathering a new identity, collecting forged documents and a French passport, and finally a custom-built rifle. Top French police investigator Lebel (Michel Lonsdale) learns the name 'Jackal' from an informer in the plotter's ranks and cleverly pieces together the identity of the killer-for-hire.As with all good thrillers, it's the chase leading up to the climactic finale that is the best part of watching the plot unfold. In relating its tense tale of political wrangling, the intricate and meticulous story develops with a parallel structure that details the Jackal's preparations for the assassination, and Lebel's ongoing efforts to stop him. Fox is superb as the coldly impassioned assassin, and Lonsdale is magnificently analytical as the obsessive detective tracking him down. Despite its measured pace, the tension slowly mounts as the Jackal closes in on his high value target, and the authorities pull out all the stops to find him first. A taut, fascinating, and timeless political thriller.

In thrillers' orthodoxy, the effectiveness of suspense relies on the outcome's unpredictability. If the main character is a killer, there has to be chances for his success, and any slight intuition that he might not accomplish his mission would severely undermine the film's value as a thriller.However, there is no rule without exceptions, and on that level, "The Day of the Jackal", released by Fred Zimmerman in 1973, is a fantastic school-case proving that thrills can be efficiently driven regardless of what they're leading up to. The film, adapted from Frederick Forsyth's best-seller, centers on a professional killer, Edward Fox as 'the Jackal' assigned by the underground army group OAS to assassinate General De Gaulle, on anger for his granting the independence to Algeria, thus betraying his vows to the French Army.And there are reasons why the 'Jackal' demands half-a million dollars for his services besides danger and De Gaulle's difficulty to be 'approached': he's giving them France on a silver plate, he'll never be able to work again and they can use their networks to rob banks and jewelries … not to mention he has to make sure he can escape after the killing. Naturally, all these precautions hardly matter on the long term, we know De Gaulle will live, but it's less in the killing than the way its planning is masterfully and meticulously constructed, Zimmerman displays indeed a level of craftsmanship matching the Jackal's professionalism.'Professionalism" is a key word enhancing "The Day of the Jackal"'s cinematic greatness. The film chronicles with a documentary-like realism all the steps, every single move anticipating the assassination. To obtain a passport, he uses the birth certificate of an Englishman who'd be his age if he didn't die at 2, he then moves to Genoa to order false passports from a forger and a lightweight rifle with telescopic sight and a silencer from a gunsmith. Meanwhile, he spots the apartment in Paris with the best view on Place du 18 Juin 1940, duplicates the key to the upper flat, and steals a passport in London's airport from a Danish tourist.To spice up the plot, the French Secret Services spot the location where the OAS members exiled and their investigation concludes on another plot against the President. They have clues that a fair-haired Englishman visited the place but nothing else. The way their services collaborate with other foreign agencies, mainly Scotland Yard, use registration cards from hotels prove the Jackals's precautions right, he rightfully expected that the cover to be blown (not without the use of torture) … but the thrills come from the whole cat-and-mouse game between European police bureaucracies and one man who single-handedly challenges them all.That's one of the greatest delights provided by "The Day of the Jackal", and Fox' performance is crucial here. He appears like a highly-educated upper-class Englishman who can easily go unnoticed in a summertime France full of tourists, we eagerly follow him in his tour all over Europe (the escapism of "The Day of the Jackal" is another strength worth mentioning) and even when he's told about the French police's progresses (a spy was hired to become the mistress of a French minister), he manages to slip through the net, using his boyish charm to seduce a bourgeois woman or a Danish disguise to seduce a Parisian in a Turkish bathhouse.On the other side, professionalism is also working, and Inspector Raymond Lebel (Michael Lonsdale) is given full power to track and find the 'Jackal' In total secrecy according to De Gaulle's orders, De Gaulle wouldn't change his schedule, let alone the August 25 celebration of the Resistance Day, coincidentally the likeliest time for the assassination. Zimmerman swings back and forth from the Jackal to the Police, from the borders to the hotels, with an advantage in time, the Jackal intelligently exploits. Luck or hazard are never parameters, it's essentially the courage and the nerve of a no-nonsense man who trusts his professionalism.Back to that professionalism thing, there is an interesting sequence in Genoa, where the Jackal takes the rifle from the gunsmith (Cyril Cusack) : the man proves his reliability by not asking questions and remaining all matter-of-factly over the killing-marvel he created. On the other hand, the forger tries to blackmail the Jackal and gets exactly what was coming to him. The parallel between the two attitudes highlights that no matter how 'malevolent' he is, the Jackal has 'ethics' , there is a way you should deal with him and a way not to. Still, he can kill any by-passer on his deadly path, women and even older ones won't be spared.Indeed, no matter who die, De Gaulle remains the man-not-to-be-killed. "The Jackal" still has an interesting body count. Some murders are cold-blooded and particularly brutal but they provide the required two-dimensionality for leading villain. And by that, I don't mean the man lacks depth, but what to expect from a professional killer who's only dedicated to his last mission? He can't show anything but what is shown is enough, and the contrast between his elegance and ruthlessness, as for the Inspector's average appearance but undeniable competence, two opposite at the top of their game, is enough to thrill us.And as a thriller, "The Day of the Jackal" is a heart-pounding combination of suspense, realism with regular outbursts of violence, it's a two-hour and 15 minutes race against the clock that never seems to long. Granted the outcome predictable, it's not in the 'what will happen' but 'how it will'. The editing answers to the 'how' and is curiously the only Oscar-nominated aspect of the film; frankly I would have nominated it for Best Directing and Best Writing as well, one of the greatest thrillers of the 70's

Intelligent thriller(directed by Fred Zinnemann) based on Fredrick Forsythe's novel about professional assassin the Jackal(Edward Fox, quite good) who is hired by enemies of French president Charles De Gaulle to assassinate him, despite being the most closely guarded man in the world.Engrossing thriller shows his careful research of his target, and how he prepares himself and comes up with a "foolproof" plan to kill him, and how, despite the outward appearance of an English gentleman, will still ruthlessly kill anyone who gets in his way, but of course history records a different outcome, which lends the right amount of truth to this examination of the case, even if the Jackal himself remains a mystery.