The Day of the Jackal(1973)

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The Day of the Jackal to me is one of the few novels whose movie adaptation is as good as the original novel. The movie revolves around the plot to assasinate French President Charles De Gaulle, by an underground organization OAS, who are furious at his granting independence to Algeria. The movie actually starts off with a failed assasination attempt on De Gaulle, followed by the execution of their leader Jean Bastien-Thiry.

The remaining leaders hire a professional British assasin who only goes by the code name of the Jackal( Edward Fox). With French intelligence getting wind of the plot, they put in the Dy. Police Comissioner Claude Lebel ( Michael Lonsdale), to lead the investigation.

The movie is more of a slow burn thriller, except the first shootout, there is not really much action. The entire movie is more of a cat and mouse game, between the police and the Jackal, who manages to be two steps ahead often. The way the Jackal manages to get fake identity cards, rifle is very well depicted, as also how he disposes off people in his way. The police investigation too is well depicted, the way they track down the plot, and get on the Jackal's trail.

Fred Zinneman was one really good director with classics like High Noon, From Here to Eternity, Oklahoma to his credit. In a sense this movie is quite similiar to High Noon, in the way the narrative builds up slowly to the climax. You don't have much of action per se, but you feel the tension building up all the way. And here you feel it as the Jackal, keeps moving once step closer to his mission.

Also Zinneman sticks to Forsyth's novel as is, without much changes, and that makes this movie even better. The detailing is as good as what you see in the original novel, be it the way the fake documents are made, or getting the rifle, smuggling it along, or the police investigation.

Two great performances one by Edward Fox as the Jackal, icy cool, manipulative, ruthless, he hits the right notes. The other is Michael Lonsdale as the cop Lebel, who brings in the energy to the role, he would later gain fame as the bad guy Hugo Drax in the Bond movie Moonraker.

This is the kind of slow burn thriller, where you need to watch every scene to understand the narrative, and the tension is the kind that builds up slowly. If you love these kind of movies go for it.