Fox or Jackal? (The Day of the Jackal (DVD))

Member Name: welshwolf

Product:	The Day of the Jackal (DVD)
Date:	02/05/01 (96 review reads)
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Another of Fred Zimmermann’s classic films as a director. The day of the Jackal is a model of how a good thriller should be elegant, precise and painfully tense at times.

The film is set in France in 1962 under the rein of President De Gaulle. A renegade group of ex soldiers lead by Colonel Marc Rodin, called the OAS, has attempted to kill De Gaulle on no less than five occasions and have been frustrated by chance. AS a last resort they decide to hire an outsider to do the job called ‘The Jackal’ (Edward Fox). The Jackal is an upper middle class Englishman who insists on total anonymity and absolute freedom to carry out the mission in whatever means he wants. The film tracks his complex preparations with the increasingly desperate attempts of the French police force to discover his identity and stop him before he can kill De Gaulle.

The film is split into two parts the investigation and the preparations and does not gel as well as it might do. The best scenes to me are where the Jackal meets the sublime Cyril Cussack playing a gunsmith and a camp Ronald Pickup playing what seems the least reliable forger in Europe.

There are the occasional moments of humour but the film on the whole is expected to be taken a serious and at times it does get a bit monotonous with the film lasting two and a quarter hours. A film that may not suite the modern day film buff but one that I feel is well worth a viewing.

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