Clint Eastwood delivers one of his finest performances, as a secret service agent haunted by his past in Wolfgang Petersen's taut thriller In the Line of Fire. Eastwood plays Frank Horrigan, a secret service agent who keeps thinking back to November 22, 1963, when, as an agent hand-picked by President Kennedy, he became one of the few agents to have lost a president to an assassin. Decades later, psychotic Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) is stalking another president (Jim Curley) running for
re-election. He has spent long hours studying the psyche of Frank Horrigan, and he taunts Horrigan (feeling that there is a bond between them), telling him of his plans to kill the president. After his conversation with Leary, Horrigan makes sure he is assigned to presidential protection duty. Horrigan has no intention of failing his president this time around, and he is more than willing to take a bullet. But everything goes Leary's way -- he is smart and cagey and the president's aides refuse to alter the itinerary. As the election draws closer, Horrigan's chances to catch Leary look to be less and less a possibility, and he begins to doubt his own abilities -- both now and in the past, when Kennedy was murdered. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi
Director Wolfgang Petersen sends the story efficiently down its straight and narrow track, deftly engineering the battle of wills between two desperately committed men.
Hands down, Malkovich's assassin is the best thing about this solid thriller -- a villain that rivals Hannibal Lecter for intelligence and cold, calculated viciousness.
Despite the familiar plot elements ... In the Line of Fire is not a retread but a smart, tense, well-made thriller -- Eastwood's best in the genre since Tightrope.
Malkovich does such wonderfully unexpected things, especially with his line readings, that he leaves us dumbfounded. No other performer is more effortlessly unnerving than this perversely gifted actor.
A solid entry in the Eastwood oeuvre, one which manages to sustain its tension while also giving viewers characters that aren't just driven by the plot.
This well-executed picture demonstrates the validity of Hitchcock's claim that a thriller is as good as its villain. John Malkovich is an excellent villain, but the film also has a good, flawed hero, played by Clint Eastwood.
Directing each set-piece for all he's worth, Petersen highlights the plot with vivid details and invests several of the action sequences with moral/psychological dimensions.
It's not easy being a Hollywood villain, especially when you're up against the charisma that is Clint Eastwood. But John Malkovich does an excellent job delivering a toe-to-toe performance with the grand daddy of heroes. His and Eastwood's performances push forward what would have been an average, done-a-lot-before
movie into an exciting thrill ride.
Excellent performances by Clinton and John. Clint is a secret service agent who failed to save JFK. He is taunted by an assassin who wants to kill the present day president. Good plot.
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