The Day of the Jackal

The opening five minutes of the film are a marvel. Almost completely devoid of dialogue the scenes portray visually more story than most modern thrillers can fit into two hours. This is about the best book-to-film conversion I’ve ever seen. The cuts, where they are made, are logical and some locations are combined. From Forsyth’s first, and probably best book (written in less than 5 weeks) this film contains nothing that does not drive the story forward. The character of the Jackal is brilliantly finely drawn. He doesn’t contain any of the cliches that you would expect to see in a film written in the last twenty years (he doesn’t display mental instability, or have flashbacks to some event in his past). He never tries to justify his pernicious occupation to anyone yet, strangely, doesn’t come across as an evil man. Simply as a professional doing his job. The French police inspector is wonderfully underplayed and is as far away from the he-breaks-the-rules-but-he-gets-the-job-done cliche as you can possibly imagine. He is first seen attending to his pigeons and upon being told he is being put on the case simply says “Oh God…”….

Zimmemann’s direction is great and the scenes are beautifully photographed – particularly in Paris.

This is an all-time great film. Definitely in my top ten. I suppose I must put something in negative so it makes for a balanced review so errr…. I think the French minister is wearing a very bad wig. Beyond that -marvelous.