[ Golden Gater Online - November 13, 1997 ]
Justin Grams
Staff writer
"The Jackal," the new Bruce Willis/Richard Gere film which hits theaters this Friday, is a complete Hollywood disaster packed with every worn-out and tired action film clichÈ abused for the last 15 years.
The film is an unredeemable nightmare that packs everything wrong with big-budget Hollywood pictures into one glossed-over showcase of insensitivity.
Willis plays a high-profile mercenary named the Jackal, who is hired by a Russian elitist to assassinate a high-ranking U.S. government official in a blood-thirsty revenge scheme. An FBI director named agent Preston (Sidney Poitier in an embarrassing comeback) is hot on the trail of the Jackal but has one problem: He doesn't know who the Jackal's main target is. The muddled FBI agent desperately seeks help from imprisoned Irish underground operative Declan Mulqueen (Gere) and reluctantly offers him immunity in exchange for helping him trace down the Jackal and take him out.
"The Jackal" is a sophomoric effort directed by Michael Caton-Jones (the miserable "Doc Hollywood" and "Memphis Belle") and appears not to have any direction or vision. Rather, it serves as an exposÈ of superficial dialogue and inconsistent concepts that lead nowhere.
Willis, Gere, Poitier and the supporting cast are all miserable and unconvincing in their roles, and even the star power of the leading tough guys can't save this one. They will hopefully be shopping around Tinseltown for new agents soon. Willis looks bored with the whole show and seems ready to walk away at any time. Gere, with his cursory "I want me Lucky 'Choms' " accent, is laughable and unbelievable in his performance of Mulqueen and seems to indulge in the fact how easy it's become for him to be a good-looking hack.
"The Jackal" is also one of the first films in recent memory which sinks to an all-time low of gratuitous violence and sundry stereotypes as if just plain blind to any social responsibility whatsoever. The violence is baseless, presented for all the wrong reasons, and sprinkled with reckless hints of homophobia and misogyny in some of its most disturbing scenes.
In one of many unnecessarily brutal scenes, Willis' multi-faced assassin cuddles up next to a young politician in a Washington D.C. gay bar and leads him to believe he might want to get together in the near future. Later in the film, the Jackal calls him up and arranges to meet him for a date. When the man arrives home, Willis is eating Korean takeout in front of the TV, and his sensitive, pretty-boy appearance at the bar has morphed into his real-life, psychopathic and chauvinistic personality. He blasts multiple blood-spurting gunshots into the gay man's chest with an errie enthusiasm just so that he can steal his government issue parking permit and grab a good parking spot close to the assassination. For a slick, covert criminal who has no problem changing his identity and forging passports, it would seem plausible that there would be easier ways to obtain a parking laminate than by killing a token gay character.
In another scene, Willis shoots a female Russian intelligence officer (yet another wasted performance by Diane Venora) in the stomach then stands over her, smiling, before painting a heart on her cheek with her blood and whispering to her that Gere should "take better care of his women."
Most disappointing of all is that "The Jackal" isn't even a movie that teams its superstars! Willis and Gere shot their scenes on different units (various camera crews used to speed up production) and never share any real scenes. There is a failed illusion of making them seem like they're in the same frame. The scenes with the two actors together appear to be done with body doubles, matte paintings (backgrounds painted to make scenes shot on an indoor soundstage seem like they're outdoors) and poorly executed digital effects.
"The Jackal" is essentially a product of studio executive philosophies where they hire two big stars, give them some guns and hope to make a $100 million. Instead, Universal Pictures created the ultimate rip-off; a downright deceitful film completely oblivious to its irresponsible exploitation of victims and violence.
It's a ridiculous and insignificant piece of filmmaking which deserves to be ignored and buried deep in a celluloid warehouse for eternity. Gere and Willis, two of Hollywood's most popular and admired stars, should be ashamed of themselves for promoting such a hack effort and letting themselves get attached to a late-night HBO movie disguised as a blockbuster.
Everything about this movie will leave a bad taste in any educated viewer's mouth. Its a shameless disregard for human compassion filled with excessive "hero" shots (close-ups of the masculine stars' stoic mugs), callous portrayals of women, and an impoverished outlook on the world's governments and the people who have some faith in them.
[ Golden Gater - November 13, 1997 ]