Amazon.com Essentials:
With its high-intensity plot about an attempt to assassinate
French President Charles de Gaulle, the bestselling novel by Frederick
Forsyth was a prime candidate for screen adaptation. Director Fred
Zinnemann brought his veteran skills to bear on what has become a
timeless classic of screen suspense. Not to be confused with the later
remake The Jackal starring Bruce Willis (which shamelessly
embraced all the bombast that Zinnemann so wisely avoided), this 1973
thriller opts for lethal elegance and low-key tenacity in the form of
the Jackal, the suave assassin played with consummate British coolness
by Edward Fox. He's a killer of the highest order, a master of
disguise and international elusiveness, and this riveting film follows
his path to de Gaulle with an intense, straightforward documentary
style. Perhaps one of the last great films from a bygone age of pure,
down-to-basics suspense (and a kind of debonair European alternative
to the American grittiness of The French Connection), The
Day of the Jackal is a cat-and-mouse thriller that keeps you on
the edge of your seat until its brilliantly executed final scene
(pardon the pun), by which time Fox has achieved cinematic immortality
as one of the screen's most memorable killers. --Jeff Shannon
