Amoeba Music

I often recommend The Day Of The Jackal to people and they always come back and say the same thing, “That was great. What are some more movies like that?” I’m hard-pressed to answer because there are none as good of the type (maybe in the general ballpark: State Of Siege, Z, Black Sunday, The Manchurian Candidate - I don’t know). The Day Of The Jackal is the best assassination thriller ever made. Ever. Not to be confused with the Bruce Willis sorta remake Jackal, which sucked. This, the original version based on the great novel of the same name by Frederick Forsyth (The Dogs Of War), is a taut, textbook example of how to make an exciting, sophisticated, suspense film with a cast of non brand-names and without having to rely on overblown action sequences.

After France ended their occupation of Algeria their military was left with a number of pissed off killers (the O.A.S.) who wanted revenge against their president, Charles de Gaulle (see the brilliant docudrama Battle Of Algiers for further study on that subject). So they hire the world’s greatest assassin - code-named "The Jackal" (Edward Fox) - to kill him. Traveling all over Europe, the film meticulously follows the small triviality of how The Jackal puts together his plan (the goal is not only to shoot and kill de Gaulle, but to escape alive, without getting caught). He’s British, but can slip into any country; he’s an enigma and sleeps with both men and women if they fit into his plan. The film details everything in his plan, including the ways he obtains forged passports and even has specially designed bullets made.