The fundamental problem with remakes is that you find yourself comparing the remake with the original . When watching THE JACKAL I found myself comparing American and European films . The original DAY OF THE JACKAL was a very European movie filmed entirely in Europe with a mainly European cast and crew with a very understated performance from Edward Fox as a very English assassin . It was a film that was both intelligent and compelling . The remake on the other hand - Despite having a Scottish director - is a very American film : Loud , vulgar , not very clever , with box office consideration over riding creative and artistic factors . You want a determined and ruthless assassin ? How about Jean Reno ? Ah but you can`t do that because the studio want a big name American actor like Bruce Willis in the title role , a role where his character has to don several disguises none of which make him look like anything more than Bruce Willis in a disguise ( A bit like Val Kilmer in THE SAINT where no matter how much the hero disguises himself he always looks like Val Kilmer ) And being an American film who better to play an IRA man than that well known wee , short , fat , middle aged Irish actor Richard Gere whose " oirish " accent is less convincing than the Jackal`s disguises . Once again this is the fault of the studio who are dying to cast a big name no matter how unsuitable they are for the role and once again I`m disgusted to see an IRA character as a good guy . Note to American film producers : By the 1990s most Irish Americans recognised the provisional IRA for what they are - Murdering scum . In fact one of the main reasons the IRA wanted to reach a settlement was because they`d lost all political and financial support from the Irish American lobby . The IRA had few friends over there then and have no friends over there now so stop making films with IRA characters hoping you`ll have a guaranteed hit in Boston and New York , it`s patronising to Irish Americans and offensive to us Brits
I do concede THE JACKAL is entertaining in parts and I did like the bizarre title sequence featuring a montage of 20th century Russian history set against a techno soundtrack , but it`s a very inferior film compared to the original . In fact I can`t help thinking the producers shot themselves in the foot by describing this as " A remake " because there`s very little common ground between the two except for the assassin plot . If you changed the name of The Jackal character to something else there`s very little chance Frederick Forsyth or anyone else would have sued for plagerism . As it is watching this Americanised version I found myself saying out loud " The original was better . The original was better . The original ... "
