WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

YouHeart I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Forumrxes Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

skeptic skeptical This film, set primarily in early 1960s Paris, offers a close look at a person who spends his life accepting contracts to kill other people in exchange for large wads of cash. The Jackal is a cold, calculating and very intelligent killer determined to succeed in his mission to whack the president of France, Charles de Gaulle. It does not matter much why this supposedly needs to be done. He agrees to kill on behalf of a fringe group of self-styled patriots who are incensed that Algeria has been granted its independence by the president. (As though it were his to confer!) The question how assassinating the president might alter the French renunciation of Algeria as a territory is not really treated in the film, but one surmises from their quasi-religious fervor that the members of the group somehow think that they can spark some sort of political revolution.The gist of this film is a close-up view of the contract killer in action—including the intricacies of his plan and his amoral (or is that immoral?) modus operandi—and the French police and security forces as they attempt to stop him. It's quite a story, with plenty of suspense and twists and turns, but the best part is the realistic and convincing portrayal of the sociopathic Jackal, who will stop at nothing to complete his contract and receive the second half of the huge amount of cash which awaits him. I regard The Day of the Jackal as one the best films on hit men ever made, right up there with Le Samouraï. Highly recommended!

inioi The movies seems to me more intense and captivating when shown can be real. And this is a mandatory condition for action movies, thrillers, science fiction, etc.As we all know, most of Hollywood movies (even non-action) still very much lacking credibility because, among other things, they use exaggerated and unnatural methods to create a more dramatic (but unrealistic) effect in the viewer.A lot of thrillers could have been much better if it were not for this craving of "happening things" every second...thus all the magic is lost.This movie is full of magic. And this magic means that you believe what is happening.There is very little music in the film, and is unobtrusive. Photography is nothing gimmicky, and the actors performance is very natural. Special mention to the two women have a small role in the film: Olga Georges-Picotbut and Delphine Seyrig: their performance are remarkable.Editing is also the opposite of a modern film: the pace is perfect, and takes it's time when needed. Today the shots do not last more than a few seconds, and the action scenes hundredths of a second ... as a video clip or a Coke we drink in a minute and then we throw away. I prefer to drink red wine Petrus 1973 Pomerol and taste it slowly...

ElMaruecan82 In thrillers' orthodoxy, the effectiveness of suspense relies on the outcome's unpredictability. If the main character is a killer, there has to be chances for his success, and any slight intuition that he might not accomplish his mission would severely undermine the film's value as a thriller.However, there is no rule without exceptions, and on that level, "The Day of the Jackal", released by Fred Zimmerman in 1973, is a fantastic school-case proving that thrills can be efficiently driven regardless of what they're leading up to. The film, adapted from Frederick Forsyth's best-seller, centers on a professional killer, Edward Fox as 'the Jackal' assigned by the underground army group OAS to assassinate General De Gaulle, on anger for his granting the independence to Algeria, thus betraying his vows to the French Army.And there are reasons why the 'Jackal' demands half-a million dollars for his services besides danger and De Gaulle's difficulty to be 'approached': he's giving them France on a silver plate, he'll never be able to work again and they can use their networks to rob banks and jewelries … not to mention he has to make sure he can escape after the killing. Naturally, all these precautions hardly matter on the long term, we know De Gaulle will live, but it's less in the killing than the way its planning is masterfully and meticulously constructed, Zimmerman displays indeed a level of craftsmanship matching the Jackal's professionalism.'Professionalism" is a key word enhancing "The Day of the Jackal"'s cinematic greatness. The film chronicles with a documentary-like realism all the steps, every single move anticipating the assassination. To obtain a passport, he uses the birth certificate of an Englishman who'd be his age if he didn't die at 2, he then moves to Genoa to order false passports from a forger and a lightweight rifle with telescopic sight and a silencer from a gunsmith. Meanwhile, he spots the apartment in Paris with the best view on Place du 18 Juin 1940, duplicates the key to the upper flat, and steals a passport in London's airport from a Danish tourist.To spice up the plot, the French Secret Services spot the location where the OAS members exiled and their investigation concludes on another plot against the President. They have clues that a fair-haired Englishman visited the place but nothing else. The way their services collaborate with other foreign agencies, mainly Scotland Yard, use registration cards from hotels prove the Jackals's precautions right, he rightfully expected that the cover to be blown (not without the use of torture) … but the thrills come from the whole cat-and-mouse game between European police bureaucracies and one man who single-handedly challenges them all.That's one of the greatest delights provided by "The Day of the Jackal", and Fox' performance is crucial here. He appears like a highly-educated upper-class Englishman who can easily go unnoticed in a summertime France full of tourists, we eagerly follow him in his tour all over Europe (the escapism of "The Day of the Jackal" is another strength worth mentioning) and even when he's told about the French police's progresses (a spy was hired to become the mistress of a French minister), he manages to slip through the net, using his boyish charm to seduce a bourgeois woman or a Danish disguise to seduce a Parisian in a Turkish bathhouse.On the other side, professionalism is also working, and Inspector Raymond Lebel (Michael Lonsdale) is given full power to track and find the 'Jackal' In total secrecy according to De Gaulle's orders, De Gaulle wouldn't change his schedule, let alone the August 25 celebration of the Resistance Day, coincidentally the likeliest time for the assassination. Zimmerman swings back and forth from the Jackal to the Police, from the borders to the hotels, with an advantage in time, the Jackal intelligently exploits. Luck or hazard are never parameters, it's essentially the courage and the nerve of a no-nonsense man who trusts his professionalism.Back to that professionalism thing, there is an interesting sequence in Genoa, where the Jackal takes the rifle from the gunsmith (Cyril Cusack) : the man proves his reliability by not asking questions and remaining all matter-of-factly over the killing-marvel he created. On the other hand, the forger tries to blackmail the Jackal and gets exactly what was coming to him. The parallel between the two attitudes highlights that no matter how 'malevolent' he is, the Jackal has 'ethics' , there is a way you should deal with him and a way not to. Still, he can kill any by-passer on his deadly path, women and even older ones won't be spared.Indeed, no matter who die, De Gaulle remains the man-not-to-be-killed. "The Jackal" still has an interesting body count. Some murders are cold-blooded and particularly brutal but they provide the required two-dimensionality for leading villain. And by that, I don't mean the man lacks depth, but what to expect from a professional killer who's only dedicated to his last mission? He can't show anything but what is shown is enough, and the contrast between his elegance and ruthlessness, as for the Inspector's average appearance but undeniable competence, two opposite at the top of their game, is enough to thrill us.And as a thriller, "The Day of the Jackal" is a heart-pounding combination of suspense, realism with regular outbursts of violence, it's a two-hour and 15 minutes race against the clock that never seems to long. Granted the outcome predictable, it's not in the 'what will happen' but 'how it will'. The editing answers to the 'how' and is curiously the only Oscar-nominated aspect of the film; frankly I would have nominated it for Best Directing and Best Writing as well, one of the greatest thrillers of the 70's

David Conrad A police procedural in the guise of a political thriller, "Day of the Jackal" is impressively-detailed but more restrained than many of its peers. Star power and the promise of intense action took its genre cousins "The French Connection" and "Three Days of the Condor," for example, to $40-50 million finishes in 1971 and 1975, respectively, but the slower-boiling "Jackal" barely broke $16 million. In quality of production, "Jackal" excels but seems to hearken back. It has the feel of an early 1960s film (and since it is set in 1963 that is appropriate), with the clothes and the cinematography and even the posh European setting all feeling right for a slick actioner of that era. The plot follows detectives and assassins, the first always half a step behind the second, but there is none of that stuff called "grit" that defines so many crime and espionage movies from the 1970s onward. Everything is in broad daylight, beautifully-shot with the smooth, washed-out look of director Zinnemann's other color productions like "Julia" (1977) and "A Man for All Seasons" (1966), and the necessary violence is handled perfunctorily and virtually bloodlessly. Nobody shouts, the one car crash is an accidental fender-bender, and when a French minister is implicated in an embarrassing security breach in the middle of a briefing he quietly apologizes and excuses himself. Nobody makes a scene. The decision to go with a low-key script is interesting, especially since the audience presumably knows that President Charles de Gaulle was not the victim of assassination and therefore knows from the beginning how the main plot will end. But the strength of a procedural, as opposed to a thriller, is not always in tension but in detail and the depiction of characters, and in these respects Zinnemann is master.