[spoiler]Remember the official who thought he’d been passing classified documents to South Africa, except his contact kept handing 'em to the Soviets? Sir Nigel knew the Brits wouldn’t catch the Soviet deep-cover agent in time, and so – made a phony “classified document” explaining, hey, no worries, we’re about to catch the guy.
The Soviets read that – just like they’d read all the other classified documents – and realized oh, crap; we need to make this look like a rogue agent gone bad or something, by alerting the Brits as if we thought they needed our help; in gratitude, they’ll surely kill him on the spot rather than parade him before the cameras.
Thus conned, the KGB helpfully blew the operation for the Brits; the Brits obligingly killed the guy they could’ve captured alive; Sir Nigel then made it look like the official had been passing phony “classified documents” all along, prompting the KGB to junk years of perfectly good intelligence.[/spoiler]
I agree that spoiler boxes should be used here, but I think it’s over-stating the case to call it a cult film. I mean, we watched it in my high school French class, for Pete’s sake. (On the pretense that, well, it took place in France. And was awesome).
Absolutely one of my favorite scenes in 20th century cinema. The implications of that shot make such a powerful impact, all in the viewer’s imagination, no gore needed.
I love a good caper film (and this is one of the best) – there are always multiple scenes in the beginning where the viewer is saying " huh? what’s that for? I don’t get it"…and then an hour later all is revealed, and you say “ooohh…cool!”
Especially in this case. Did anyone think that the Jackal was going to successfully assassinate Charles de Gaulle? It’s like worrying about spoiling the ending of Titanic.
This film was on the tellybox the other night and I have a couple of questions someone might be able to answer. It was on quite late so I might just have missed where either is explained.
Why did he continue with the hit even when he knew the French authorities were on to him? He states earlier in the film that he reserves the right to just sod off if any of the OAS guys are captured.
Why did he murder the rich woman? I may have nodded off for a second at this point.
1.) As Lebel says later on “He has simply taken on the lot of us.” In the book, the OAS head explains as “One does not like to stand down a mission one has planned personally.” Clearly, the Jackal thought he and his plan were good enough to succeed, despite what the Frenc (with British assistance)h had found out. As the book makes clear, he thought his Duggan identity was safe. After it was also blown, he knew that his Per Jensen ID (and, in the book, though not the film, his Marty Schulberg fake ID) only had limited time.
2.) She listened in on his phone call to his OAS contact “Valmy”, and knew he was involved in something clandestine, although she didn’t know what. (In the book, she also found his concealed rifle) The Jackal didn’t want to take any chances on her telling what she knew.
I think the genius of the movie is that even though we know De Gaulle was never killed, the movie is highly suspenseful–down to that final pull of the trigger–and you often find yourself wondering how the Jackal will not get away with it.
The other thing is that the police are smart and highly competent, but given the scale of the manhunt, slow. There is no cheating in the film, no shortcuts. The police strategically impede the Jackal’s progress, he improvises a solution that’s always highly credible. And back and forth. His plan is simple but genius and meticulously thought out. And as often is the case, the veteran comes as a complete surprise, because he doesn’t look the same at all (as opposed to movie stars who try to make themselves look like an “ordinary” version of themselves) even though we know we should be looking for something.
But I didn’t feel sad for the Jackal because he’s never a character; he’s just a device to create tension and move the story forward. Which is fine, but we never learn about what (or who) he really is. But the signpost observation is an astute one–when he makes that choice, we’re relieved because he’s so smart, we’re dying to see what he’s going to do next.
Good question. He might have escaped the crime scene in the ensuing confusion, but he’d still have to get out of France in the middle of an international manhunt. He must have had a place to hold up until the heat died down and at least one other false ID.
In the movie, he did it because she was stupid enough to tell him that the police had been there looking for him, and that she knew he had stolen his car because of its license plates. Then she said something like “Whatever is wrong, let me help.” At that point, he strangled her with a (very unrealistic) minimum of fuss.
In the book, IIRC, he caught her eavesdropping on his phone call and broke her neck with a karate chop.
What I never understood was why the police were so hush-hush about the manhunt. All they had to say was “A suspected killer had crossed into France illegally; be on the lookout for one Alex Duggan.”
There was an episode of “Remington Steele” in which Pierce Brosnan was mistakenly taken for an assassin by the bad guys. In order to keep them from discovering his real identity and killing him on the spot, what does he do? He asks them to get a melon and … you fill in the rest!
This is streaming on Netflix. Based on this thread I had to watch it again last night.
I was struck by the fact that the only reason the authorities had ANY clues to go on in the first place was because the French police kidnapped (from ITALY) and tortured to death the OAS contact man.
