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The Jackal - Michael Caton-Jones, Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Sidney Poitier

Threat advisory: High - High risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

How do you stop an assassin who has no identity?

Bruce Willis is The Jackal - the greatest assassin in history - out to eliminate a top us government official. Declan Mulqueen (Richard Gere), an imprisoned underground operative, is the only man who can stop him. Now, the Deputy Director of the FBI, (Sidney Poitier) is taking the biggest risk of all... he's releasing one criminal to stop another in this terrifically explosive, totally intriguing sophisticated suspense thriller.

Written by Chuck Pfarrer, based on The day of the Jackal by Kenneth Ross, filmed in 1973, directed by Michael Caton-Jones.

Cinematic intelligence sources

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

Oh dear, no matter how hard they tried to bring this into the 90s by introducing Bill Clinton, mobile phones and the internet, The Jackal still echoes down the decades like a slice of leftover 70s meatloaf that somehow got left under grandma's sofa.

With all the plausibility for which the 70s are renown, everyone just happens to run into the person they are looking for across three continents. There is some bad make-up, some bad accents (Diane Venora's vodka Valentina is fab, however) and plenty of bad hair. Have I mentioned the bad dialogue yet?

On the plus side, there is lots of 90s-style violence. Sidney Poitier is as striking and original an actor as he was when I first saw him in To sir, with love (one of the greatest films of all time) and Diane Venora is a major bitch. Cool.

It was a slightly interesting way to pass 119 minutes, and relatively enjoyable, but don't expect any earth-shattering revelations or brilliant innovations.

Media intelligence (DVD)

  • Audio and Languages: English (5.1), Italian and Spanish (stereo)
  • Disc: Single sided, dual layer
  • Picture: Widescreen (2.35:1/16:9 enhanced)
  • Subtitles: English, Greek, Polish, Czech, Bulgarian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Hungarian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish
  • Audio commentary by Michael Caton-Jones
  • The making of "The Jackal" - documentary including cast and crew interviews, deleted scenes and alternate ending
  • Production notes
  • Trailer: Theatrical
  • Cast and filmmaker's notes
  • Picture disc

Security censorship classification

MA 15+ (High level violence, medium level coarse language)

Surveillance time

119 minutes (1:59 hours)

Not for public release in Australia before date

DVD rental: 20 March 2002

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The Jackal image

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