The Day of the Jackal poster & wallpaper

Adrien Cayla-Legrand, Alan Badel, Cyril Cusack

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 Z...( read more  read more... )innemann 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

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87% liked it

7,022 ratings

PG, 143 min.

Directed by: Fred Zinnemann

Release Date: May 18, 1973

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DVD Release Date: April 28, 1998

Stats: 473 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (473)

  • stopitgoaway
    November 8, 2009
    stopitgoaway
    The opening five minutes of the film are a marvel. Almost completely devoid of dialogue the scenes portray visually more story than most modern thrillers can fit into two hours. This is about the best book-to-film conversion I've ever seen. The cuts, where they are made, are logi...( read more)cal and some locations are combined. From Forsyth's first, and probably best book (written in less than 5 weeks) this film contains nothing that does not drive the story forward. The character of the Jackal is brilliantly finely drawn. He doesn't contain any of the cliches that you would expect to see in a film written in the last twenty years (he doesn't display mental instability, or have flashbacks to some event in his past). He never tries to justify his pernicious occupation to anyone yet, strangely, doesn't come across as an evil man. Simply as a professional doing his job. The French police inspector is wonderfully underplayed and is as far away from the he-breaks-the-rules-but-he-gets-the-job-done cliche as you can possibly imagine. He is first seen attending to his pigeons and upon being told he is being put on the case simply says "Oh God..."....

    Zimmemann's direction is great and the scenes are beautifully photographed - particularly in Paris.

    This is an all-time great film. Definitely in my top ten. I suppose I must put something in negative so it makes for a balanced review so errr.... I think the French minister is wearing a very bad wig. Beyond that -marvelous.
  • organgrinder136
    October 7, 2008
    organgrinder136
    it has some suspense... unfortunately the whole 2 hours could've been condensed into something about 30 seconds long as the plot wasn't too expansive. uninteresting... boring...
  • DrZeek
    April 1, 2008
    DrZeek
    Col. Rodin: We are not terrorists, you understand. We are patriots. Our duty is to the soldiers who've died fighting in Algeria, and to the three million French citizens who have always lived there.
    The Jackal: [bluntly] And so you want to get rid of him.
    Col. Rodin: [after a pau...( read more)se] Speaking as a professional, do you think it's possible?
    The Jackal: It's possible. The point is getting away with it. And speaking as a professional, that's a very important consideration.

    An extremely well made thriller about a meticulous assassin, codenamed the Jackal, who has been hired to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle and the efforts by the French government to find this assassin and stop him.

    This movie works extremely well due to how well every aspect is executed. The way the story unfolds is not only exciting, but believable. There is no need to have any sort of suspension of disbelief. The way the Jackal moves around Europe and evade the police is all handled in a realistic manner. On the other side of things, the way the government goes trying to find the Jackal is also done through a straightforward and believable approach.

    Much of this comes through in how the movie uses all the details to hold itself together. Little things like the function of some papers created in scenes much earlier in the movie, or the purpose of an item purchased at a marketplace all come together very well by the time its purpose must be served. The weapon of choice by the Jackal is also especially cool, due to its practically covert design, and the way the film shows how the Jackal transports it.

    The lead performance from Edward Fox as the Jackal is also great. Fox has to play a man who can easily blend into a crowd and not give off any sort of alarm. This isn't the kind of person that will be given deep characterization, but from what we know, he is skilled, orderly, and efficient. The fact that he applies his skills to professional killing gives him a slight sinister quality, but his proper English manner could make anyone believe otherwise.

    Minister: How did you know whose telephone to tap?
    Lebel: I didn't, so I tapped them all.

    Michael Lonsdale as Lebel, the chief inspector going after the Jackal is also very good. He is a confident man, doesn't lose sight in his objective, but doesn't easily find his way to his target either. He goes through all logical processes to discover the Jackal's plans.

    Much of the success also comes from how well this film moves along. At two hours and twenty minutes, this movie glides by, remaining constantly entertaining, with important points occurring at almost every way through. This is due to how well the movie is edited. Scenes move straight to the point, with cuts away from obvious results, moving to the resulting scenes, ready for the next actions to take place.

    The scenery is great. This film uses the actual locations throughout Europe to show where the Jackal has traveled, which includes London, Paris, and various other parts of Europe.

    This is a wonderfully exciting hitman thriller, that unfolds its story appropriately, and is especially superior to the terrible remake.

    Minister: Who the hell was he?
  • garyX
    August 24, 2007
    garyX
    An intelligent euro-thriller concerning an algerian terrorist plot to assassinate De Gaul. This film is carried almost in it's entirety by Edward Fox, who is completely believable as the cold-blooded assassin, ruthlessly setting about his business of professional killer while a m...( read more)ulti-national task force blindly pursue him. The documentary style is a little uninvolving and the ending a little anti-climactic but Fox is excellen,t as are the rest of the cast (including a very young Derek Jacobi) and it makes a nice change of pace to the usual pointless explosions and car chases.
  • kenstachnik
    July 19, 2007
    kenstachnik
    Awesome awesome movie...totally different from the re-make...
  • stylem90
    September 18, 2009
    stylem90
    this mouvie is the best so far
  • Phonex
    July 30, 2009
    Phonex
    Fred Zinnemann's attention to detail in The Day of the Jackal seems very close to Frederick Forsyth's intricate novel, and pulls off the feat of sustaining suspense in this political thriller, even though we know the Jackal must eventually fail.

    A secret underground terrorist...( read more) group in France called the OAS decide to hire a professional killer to assassinate French President Charles De Gaulle (Adrien Cayla-Legrand) after their own attempts end in failure. The name recommended to them is the ?Jackal?, an anonymous hit man apparently responsible for a string of high profile killings. Charles Calthrop (Edward Fox) is the infamous Jackal, taking his name from the French spelling ? Chacal. Edward Fox is impassively effective as the cold-fish English assassin contracted to kill De Gaulle. The Jackal painstakingly puts his plan into action, involving gathering a new identity, a forged drivers license and French passport to enable him to travel without being detected. The forger Caron (Ronald Pickup) guesses the documents are for a special purpose and attempts to blackmail Fox into handing over money, and pays a heavy price for such a gamble. A special rifle is needed for the hit so a specialist gunsmith (Cyril Cusack) is approached to build a custom designed rifle with explosive bullets ? though once again his reward is not what he would have expected as Fox attempts to cover his tracks.

    Chief Inspector Lebel (Michel Lonsdale) is the French detective assigned to hunting the Jackal down, through an informer he learns of the Jackal?s existence but a range of disguises by the Jackal hinder their attempts to capture him. Fox is by now in France making final preparations, to keep away from the French authorities he seeks sexual partners who will unknowingly provide him with refuge, both wealthy Colette (Delphine Seyrig) and homosexual Bernard (Anton Rodgers) fall into this category ? both are silenced by Fox once they are no longer needed. The tracking Lebel knows the Jackal is in Paris and preparing to strike, his only option is to flood the Liberation Day celebrations that De Gaule is attending with police officers in the hope of a lucky break. Fox this time disguises himself as a war veteran to pass unnoticed through his surroundings, then enters an overlooking flat to set up his rifle and assassinate the French president. At the very moment Fox has De Gaule in his sights, Lebel bursts into the flat and kills the cold-blooded assassin.

    Though slow paced, with each passing moment the tension grips as the Jackal nears his target. The film was later remade starring Bruce Willis and Richard Gere under the title of The Jackal, but it had none of the originals finesse and only serves to make people want to see the original again
  • HorrorMovieCinema
    May 24, 2009
    HorrorMovieCinema
    When President De Gaulle decides to grant independence to French Algeria, several of the soldiers, who fought in that campaign, feel that De Gaulle is belittling the lives of the men who died there. So they form a group and make attempts at De Gaulle and fail.


    When several ...( read more)of their key members are killed or caught and eventually executed, the three top members decide to hire a professional assassin to take out De Gaulle. The man that they chose agrees to do it on the condition that he be alllowed complete autonomy. He also advises them to go into hiding until the job is done. And they do. When the French Security force learns that they have shut themselves off from the rest of world are curious what they are doing. So they abduct their errand boy, and once interrogated all he says is the assassin's code name, "The Jackal",



    they hypothesize that they have hired an assassin to go after DE Gaulle. Once De Gaulle is informed he refuses to alter his plans and will not allow extra security added. So his ministry decides that they should find the Jackal before he makes his move. They appoint the best detective in France, Claude Lebel to find him. Lebel plan is to contact every police department in the world and see if the Jackal comes from their country and if so to provide him with a description and/or a photo. Now Scotland Yard has a small lead but unfortunately they miss him but they have his passport so assuming that he is out of the country, they try and find the passport that he is using. Now when they think that they have him, he discards the identity that he is using and assumes another one.
  • devlincade
    May 9, 2009
    devlincade
    Based on true events. Non-stop thrill ride of cat and mouse. The race to stop the attempted assassin of Charles DeGaulle never lets up on the tension.
  • RThornhill
    April 15, 2009
    RThornhill
    Relay good cat and mouse assassination flick with Fox as a very believable hitman.....

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  • In "The Day of the Jackal" (NOT the remake with Bruce Willis), who was the Jackal's target?  Answer »
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