FILM REVIEW OF ''THE JACKAL'' (1997)

Watching horrible movies like “The Jackal” (*1/2 out of ****) is enough to make you howl in derision. This Bruce Willis & Richard Gere assassination saga ranks as a pallid remake of director Fred Zinnemann’s classic 1973 thriller “The Day of the Jackal.” Typically, Hollywood remakes are inferior when compared with the original, and “The Jackal” indisputably proves the point beyond a shadow of a doubt. Sluggishly paced, abysmally written, and hilariously performed, “The Jackal” has managed nevertheless to sucker large audiences into cinemas, based undoubtedly on its stellar cast, rather than its narrative.

“The Jackal” draws its inspiration from scenarist Kenneth Ross’s “Day of the Jackal” script. No screen reference appears in the opening film credits for novelist Frederick Forsyth who penned the international bestseller about a lone assassin gunning for French president Charles de Gaulle. Whereas the original “Jackal” took place in the 1960s, the “Jackal” remake unfolds in a contemporary setting. What made the original “Jackal” a tense, spellbinding, but imaginative actioneers was how the filmmakers got around their obvious dead end ending. Everybody knew that De Gaulle was never shot down by an assassin, so Zinnemann and his write Kenneth Ross had to dream up a plausible resolution. They did. “Memphis Belle” director Michael Caton-Jones and scenarist Chuck Pfarrer, however, come up with nothing to match the original’s clever conclusion.

That’s not to say that “The Jackal” isn’t an elegant looking epic with some interesting high-tech firearms. The moviemakers have spared no expense in rehashing the original. The story globe trots from the new Moscow to Helsinki, then London, England, and finally the United States. The problem is that director Caton-Jones and scenarist Pfarrer have eliminated the best parts of Ross’ original script and replaced them with their own brain-dead plotting. When the characters in “The Jackal” aren’t acting like imbeciles, the people who made the film are.

FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston (Sidney Poitier) storms into a Moscow disco on the heels of Russian Intelligence officer Major Valentina Koslova (Diane Venora of “Wolfen”) and her policemen to bust arrogant Russian mafioso Ghazzi Murad (Ravil Isyanov of “GoldenEye”). When he cannot bribe Koslova, Ghazzi whips out a knife. During the ensuing struggle, Koslova shoots Ghazzi at close range and kills him. Terek Murad (David Hayman of “Walker”) is furious when he learns about Ghazzi’s death. Terek is so upset that he buries an axe in the head of the mafia soldier who brought him the bad news.

The vindictive Terek hires a lethal assassin known only as “The Jackal.” Demanding bloody retribution, Terek pays the Jackal the sum of $70-million dollars, half in advance and the other half on completion of the killing. Specifically, Terek demands the head of the FBI killed in spectacular fashion. The Jackal orders Terek to hole up somewhere outside of Russia until he has iced the FBI chief. Meanwhile, Russia authorities abduct one of Terek’s bodyguards.

Under gruesome torture the bodyguard yields the word ‘jackal.’ Koslova informs an incredulous Preston that the KGB once used the Jackal’s services. Moreover, they learn that somebody is alive who can positively identify the Jackal. The catch is that the FBI doesn’t know where they can lay their hands on Isabella (Mathilda May of “Lifeforce”). The best that they can come up with is her old flame, IRA terrorist Declan Mulqueen (Richard Gere of “Internal Affairs”), who is pulling a 50-year stretch in a Massachusetts lock-up on a weapons charge.

Reluctant initially to reveal the whereabouts of his ex-girlfriend, Mulqueen decides to help the FBI. Not only does he tell Preston that he has seen the Jackal, but also that he can recognize the Jackal’s methods. Caton-Jones and Pfarrer cross-cut between the authorities tracking down the Jackal and the Jackal’s painstaking efforts to elude capture and devise a failsafe scenario so he can get away without a trace. As the tight-lipped, amoral, icy-hearted eponymous character, Bruce Willis turns in a Dr. Jackal and Mr. Hide performance. Willis’ hitman travels incognito with several identities and passports to get him through customs anywhere he goes. Talk about dressing up. Half of “The Jackal” is wasted as we try to spot Bruno in his next outlandish disguise. Willis has more fun dressing up than shooting people. None of Willis’ disguises are as ingenious or playful as the ones Val Kilmer wore in “The Saint.” Now, you “Die Hard” fans are going to be disappointed with “The Jackal.” One of Bruno’s disguises is playing a homosexual, and we get to see Bruno kiss another homosexual. No, you don’t see their lips smack! Willis and the filmmakers photograph the kissing scene tastefully so that you cannot actually see Bruce’s lips on the other fellow’s mouth.

Although Willis makes a tolerable villain, he is supposed to be the deadliest hitman in the world. Truth of the matter is that the guy cannot hit the side of a barn with his pistol. In an early shoot-out with Valentina, the Jackal misses practically every shot! Later, in a subway gunfight with Mulqueen, the Jackal incredibly cannot put a bullet in the ex-IRA gunman! Here’s the Jackal behind a pillar swapping lead with Mulqueen who is standing out in the open without a bit of cover, and the Jackal cannot hit him! Which brings me to the Jackal’s sophisticated Gatling gun weapon. Does he want to make the shoot-out a bloody one with a weapon that can empty its clip of ammunition before the first shot tears into its target? Or is it simply that the Jackal is a pathetic marksman?
Richard Gere looks hopelessly miscast as an honorable IRA gunman. His emerald accent is acceptable, largely because he doesn’t have to utter a lot of singsong dialogue. The moviemakers do everything that they can to whitewash Mulqueen’s character.

“The Jackal” could have been a great cat-and-mouse thriller, but all it manages to be is a wedge of cheese with a thousand holes in its storyline.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE PEACEMAKER" (1997)

Stolen Russian nukes are up for grabs in the George Clooney & Nicole Kidman escapade “The Peacemaker,” a sloppy but serviceable global thriller that drowns its audience in sentiment rather than buoys them with entertainment. Despite the millions the DreamWorks Pictures sunk into their first major film release, director Mimi Leder in her cinematic debut struggles with a second-hand, warmed over story. The cliffhanger predicaments and their resolutions emerge as more hackneyed and pretentious than virile and exciting. Enough with these adventure sagas set in the new Russia! Few surprises enliven this downbeat, humorless, technical Tom Clancy clone. Although “The Peacemaker” boasts a couple of decent scenes, the film grovels under a heavy-handed script, dull villains and equal opportunity his’n her plotting.

The Michael (“Crimson Tide”) Schiffer screenplay follows the strenuous efforts of U.S. Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel Tom Devoe (George Clooney of “ER”) and scientist Dr. Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman of “Far & Away”) to recover 10 nukes that corrupt Soviet General Aleksandr Kodoroff (Aleksandr Baluyev 0f “Deep Impact”) has purloined. The action ignites with sizzling promise as a team of commandos armed with machine guns and night goggles stages a daring night train robbery. With the red laser beam sighting systems on their guns and the twinkle of red from their night vision equipment, they manage to evoke an evil, sinister look. General Kodoroff explodes one of the nukes to delay the response time of the authorities, so his henchmen and he can spirit the stolen warheads out of Mother Russia.

Meanwhile, an assassin guns down a member of the Bosnian parliament scheduled to attend a United Nations peace conference. Piano teacher Dusan Gavrich (Marcel Iures of “Hart’s War”) replaces him. Dusan’s wife and child die as innocent bystanders in a street shooting; Dusan resolves to spread the tragedy of Bosnia beyond his borders so the world can experience his pain and anguish. His cohorts lay claim to one of Kodoroff’s nukes. Dusan intends to sneak a warhead into the United States and trigger it at the United Nations. Consequently, as one of the members of the Bosnian diplomatic team, Dusan represents the title character.

“The Peacemaker” evolved from journalistic exposes by political reporters Andrew and Leslie Cockburn. Schiffer’s predictable script recycles familiar elements from the 1983 James Bond thriller “Octopussy” where the villains attempted a nuclear blast to inflame the anti-nuclear protest groups and compel Western nuclear disarmament. Of course, “The Peacemaker” occurs against the backdrop of the anything goes ‘new’ Russia, a setting a little overdone recently by “GoldenEye,” “The Saint,” “Crimson Tide,” and “The Hunt for Red October.” The stolen nukes theme can be traced back to the 1965 Bond epic “Thunderball” as well as the more recent John Travolta extravaganza “Broken Arrow.” The reliance on satellite technology as well as cooperation between the military and civilians at the highest levels of the government has the Clancy imprimatur inscribed on it. Little more than Jack Ryan with a sex change, Nicole Kidman’s Dr. Julia Kelly combines literary detective Nancy Drew with the sexy 1960s TV heroine Honey West.

Feminist touches such as allowing the characters to savor quiet moments when they can cry are out of character for this kind of adventure that DreamWorks has served up. “The Peacemaker” could be accurately described as a macho chase melodrama that collides with a soapy chick flick. Quite often Leder aims for the cerebellum when she should smash the solar plexus. The best scenes in “The Peacemaker” bristle with volatile action. Nevertheless, even they falter between the lack of zip in the directing and the absence of zing in the plot.

Unfortunately, even the heroes are compromised in “The Peacemaker.” First, Clooney and Kidman never generate any chemistry. Second, forget any love subplot that would catapult them into a bare and share nude coupling. At best, these two bitch at each other. Eventually, they earn each other’s respect. They are about as much fun as two drenched cats. Clooney is the brawn of the movie, a rogue Boy Scout who alternates between a rough spartan action figure and a sensitive guy. He possesses the on-camera grace of a James Coburn, but his character is saddled with too many inconsistent quirks. Kidman has the better role as the brains of the film. She evolves from a passive scientist to an active “His Girl Friday” action heroine. If General Kodoroff is Devoe’s primary nemesis, then Dusan serves as Dr. Kelly’s arch foe. Equal opportunity plotting expands the running time of the film and makes “The Peacemaker” seem like two movies for the price of one when neither proves remotely rewarding.

Composer Hans Zimmer deserves credit for a strident but pulsating instrumental score that effectively strokes the film’s action sequences. The demolition derby in the streets of Vienna is still a yawner, marginally redeemed by Clooney’s bad boy antics. Clooney’s Lt. Col. Devoe cannot miss a shot until the end of the movie when he fails inexplicably to nail a full-sized man scrambling past him in an alley!
If sobbing heroes and heroines aren’t enough, director Leder and scenarist Schiffer deploy a villain who is more of a sob than an S.O.B. As Dusan Gavrich, Iures creates a bland antagonist. He resembles the later horror movie icon Boris Karloff, and he looks incredibly lugubrious with his totem mask of a face. There’s nothing charismatic about Dusan, so the filmmakers have stacked the cards in this drama against themselves. You cannot really hate the Dusan Gavrich character in a way that a great villain should be despised.

Even in his death scene, Dusan is compared with Christ on the cross, so you can neither sneer nor jeer at his motives. Iures’ soulful performance stirs up more pity than rage. When Hollywood uses a no-name actor as the villain and gives him a conscience, it sacrifices a major trump card. Nobody goes to thrillers to watch the heroes. People go to indulge in the enormity of the villains. Not so here in “The Peacemaker.”

Worse, as so many recent Bond movies have done, splitting the duties between the villains makes for not only one too many villains, but also one too many anti-climaxes. Although Aleksandr Baluyev’s renegade Russian general makes a more acceptable villain, he is a no-name actor, too, who American audiences can neither identify with nor boo with any emotional intensity. “The Peacemaker” has villains that pose little threat; they simply slip the plot into gear four our her’n her heroes.

When Leder stresses the human elements in “The Peacemaker,” she allows her audience to think instead of react. Thinking audiences are less susceptible to the hokey rollercoaster machinations that convulse “The Peacemaker.” In a good adventure movie, audiences mentally dodge what the heroes must physically evade. Moreover, members at an action movie are better served when they flinch instead of furrow their brows. Otherwise, they’d realize how phony the predicaments are and that they could never occur in real life. Our heroes deduce who the terrorist is with a nuke in his backpack, but they underestimate him so often that their efforts strike a ludicrous note. When somebody dies in the line of action, our hero and heroine break down and cry.

Even the title “The Peacemaker” with its inherent irony not only conveys little pizzazz, but its significance may also be lost on audiences. Director Leder well-intentioned message about the horrors of a nuclear blast would make a better disaster of the week television movie than a globe-trotting Clancy/Bond wannabe thriller. Undiscriminating audiences looking for a distracting bit of action with exotic scenery and juvenile heroes may appreciate “The Peacemaker” until the tragedy dampens the aura of escapism. Veteran action adventure moviegoers will find “The Peacemaker” more disappointing than tolerable. For all the film’s smart moves and cool looking imagery, “The Peacemaker” is too derivative to be a milestone in the thriller genre.