The Jackal

The Jackal is a 1997 suspense film starring Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Diane Venora and Sidney Poitier. It was directed by Michael Caton-Jones. While its title is similar to the 1973 film The Day of the Jackal, it shares only the main story point of an anonymous assassin and some general plot elements.

Russian mobster Terek Murad has declared open season on the Russian militia and the FBI over the shooting of his brother in a Moscow nightclub. He hires the Jackal, a nasty assassin whom nobody has even seen, to kill the Director of the FBI. With nowhere else to turn (except a woman who used to work with the Basque separatists, who is now in the USA but whose exact whereabouts in unknown to all save Mulqueen), FBI Deputy Director Carter Preston (who was present at the Moscow shooting) and Major Valentina Koslova of the Russian milita (who pulled the trigger in that shooting) enlist the reluctant services of Declan Mulqueen, an imprisoned IRA sniper, to track the Jackal down, for Declan is the only other person who can positively identify the Jackal.

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Tropes used in The Jackal include:

• Action Girl: Major Verona and Isabella Zanconia.
• Ambiguously Gay: The Jackal doesn't seem to have any problems at all going into gay bars and seducing men. While this could have just been playacting, he's exceptionally casual about it with his target, implying he might have actually been intending to go along with it for awhile until the news broadcast stepped things up.
• Antagonist Title
• The Atoner: Declan Mulqueen
• BFG: The Polish ZSU-33 14.5mm. It's fictional and most likely based on the M2HB or the Russian KPV.
  • The Internet Movie Firearms Database lists it as an M2HB mocked up as a KPV.
• Boxed Crook: Declan Malqueen.
• Bury Your Gays: The DC bureaucrat that Jackal had 'befriended' at the gay bar.
• Career Killers: Jackal
• Concealment Equals Cover: Entirely averted. Person you're shooting at ducks behind a couch? Just shoot through the couch.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": They never find out the real name of the Jackal.
• Idiot Ball: The Jackal kills Jack Black because he was trying to blackmail him into giving him more money for the plans for the mount of his BFG, but afterwards he just leaves behind the plans and Jack Blacks corpse for everyone to find.
• Informed Ability: The Jackal is supposed to be the best assassin in the world, but for some reason the good guys still have no problem following his every step. To be fair, how they catch up with his every step borders on telepathy, but using the weapon you plan to use for your assassination to rip a small time gunsmith to shreds still isn't very intelligent, even if he is trying to blackmail you. There must be at least a thousand ways to make him disappear without anyone getting suspicious.
  • Fridge Brilliance: He's getting sloppy. Between the enormity of what he's about to do, everything going against him, and him constantly thinking "All I've got to do is get through this job and I'm done forever", he's become unhinged and isn't up to his usual standards. Notice that he starts out as the ice-cold, composed strategist he's described as, but bit by bit through the movie it chips off until he's cackling and doing things For the Evulz.
• In Name Only: To The Day of the Jackal.
• Life Imitates Art: The real life assassin and terrorist Carlos "The Jackal" got his nickname from the 1974 film on which this is based due to his ability to elude authorities; Bruce Willis' character in turn may be an Expy for the Jackal, but probably not.
• Lzherusskie: Diane Venora as Major Koslova
• Master of Disguise: Jackal.
• Mercy Lead: See Stepping Out for a Quick Cup of Coffee below.
• One Last Job: Justified, as his contracted target is so high-profile, the Jackal literally has no choice but to ask Murad for a big enough payday to lay low for the rest of his life.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: A particularly gruesome example. Sometimes Richard Gere sounds Irish, and sometimes he doesn't.
• Playing Against Type: Bruce Willis as The Jackal - it's his first (and only) role as a main villain character (The Siege has his character gradually evolve into a bad guy but he isn't the main antagonist).
• Shoot the Fuel Tank: Averted. They shoot at the tank to make it leak gasoline, wait a couple of seconds for a sizable puddle to form, then they shoot at the ground to cause the spark that would make the minivan explode.
• Stepping Out for a Quick Cup of Coffee: This is how Declan walks away a free man after the government denies him an early release and gives him minimum-security instead.
• Technology Marches On: The guy selling the Jackal a yacht brags that it has a "cellular phone".
• Too Dumb to Live: So you've decided to bribe the obviously wealthy and dangerous criminal that's hired you to build a base for his huge gun. He says he'll bring the money to a remote location where there's no one around to hear him test his giant gun. ... Sounds like fun!
• Villain Ball: During the film's climax, the Jackal spends an awful lot of time zooming in the camera-scope on his massive gun, even zooming in so far as to quite literally fill the screen with the First Lady's eyes. Why? Why didn't you just center the scope and push the damn button, you idiot?
  • Because 1) it makes a bigger statement if it's an extremely gruesome shot, and the point was to make a statement and 2) the targeter had accuracy problems so the closer he zoomed it in the less likely it was to miss.
• William Telling: The Jackal tries out one of his new guns by having his "buddy" hold out a pack of cigarettes. He ends up blowing off a good chunk of the poor guy's arm.
  • "Told you it was off."