Amazon.com Essentials:
This smart, tautly directed thriller from Wolfgang Petersen is about the cat-and-mouse games between a Secret Service agent named Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) and the brilliant, psychopathic assassin (John Malkovich) who's itching to get the President in his cross hairs. The back-story--Horrigan is haunted by his inability to prevent John Kennedy's assassination (Eastwood is computer-generated into archival footage)--is more than a little hokey, but the plotting itself is smartly, even ingeniously, constructed. Petersen manages a viselike grip on the tension and Eastwood even gets to deliver an ever-more-timely lecture on the diminished nature of the office of President. Eastwood's as gruff and as infuriating to the by-the-book Powers That Be as ever, and Malkovich oozes delightful menace. Renee Russo capably costars as a colleague with whom Horrigan gets friendly. --David Kronke
Amazon.com video review:
As both an actor and a director, Clint Eastwood has had a string of unparalleled critical and commercial successes, from his trademark Westerns to the Dirty Harry action films. This set of six Eastwood films captures the actor as both cowboy and cop, from the 1970s to the '90s. Eastwood ventured into new territory with 1971's The Beguiled, a creepy and seductive thriller about an injured Civil War soldier who causes strife at an all-girls school. While there, he tempts an innocent girl (Elizabeth Hartman), and engages in an unnerving battle of the minds with the school headmistress (Geraldine Page, at her tortured best). The same year, Eastwood burst onto screens with Dirty Harry. This action blockbuster introduced the world to Harry Callahan while making waves with its aggressive violence and nonstop thrills. Eastwood himself helmed the vigilante Western The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) as well as the comedy Bronco Billy (1980), which films show Eastwood at different ends of the cowboy spectrum: a vengeful family man seeking revenge and an amiable traveling showman who runs a Wild West extravaganza, respectively.
With his Oscar-winning film Unforgiven, Eastwood showed himself as the master of the revisionist Western, crafting a morally complex tale of Western justice that turns the notion of good guys and bad guys on its head. And he proved he still had star status with the thriller In the Line of Fire, playing an aging FBI agent who takes on a cunning psycho (John Malkovich) determined to assassinate the president. While this selection doesn't feature any Sergio Leone Westerns or Eastwood's later acclaimed dramas, it remains a great snapshot of a long and illustrious career. --Mark Englehart
Amazon.com Essentials:
Between his directorial duties on A Perfect World and
The Bridges of Madison
County, Clint Eastwood starred in this pulse-racing 1993
thriller. In the Line of Fire was directed by Wolfgang
Petersen, the brilliant director of the World War II U-boat
masterpiece Das
Boot. Eastwood gives one of his best performances as Secret
Service agent Frank Horrigan, who still feels responsible for the
death of JFK 30 years earlier. Horrigan gets a shot at redemption when
challenged by a psychotic but highly intelligent assassin (John
Malkovich) who intends to kill the current U.S. president. Tension
builds as this intellectual cat-and-mouse game reaches its climactic
confrontation, but not before we've seen the killer at work, covering
his trail with ruthless precision. Tightly scripted by Jeff Maguire,
the film cuts Malkovich loose as one of the most memorable screen
villains of the 1990s, and costars Rene Russo as Eastwood's sharp
Secret Service colleague and romantic partner. The digital video disc
offers standard and widescreen formats. --Jeff Shannon
