The Jackal (1997) Review
Bruce Willis plays a cold, charming assassin who changes faces like coats, Richard Gere the IRA sniper sent to catch him, and the target is a real surprise. Critics hated it. It's an 8.5 and my favorite Jackal.
Genre: Crime
Stories and exercises built around the break, the cover-up, and the catch. Crime fiction works because the rules are clear and the people keep breaking them, and this genre covers both sides of the badge.
CrimeThe Day of the Jackal (2024) Review
Eddie Redmayne plays a charming assassin and Lashana Lynch the MI6 officer hunting him in this ten-episode reimagining of Forsyth's novel. A great first episode and good action, a saggy middle. It's a 7.
CrimeStripped to Kill (1987) Review
Stripped to Kill (1987) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Katt Shea's first film as director, made for Concorde under a brief requiring a fixed number of dance sequences, and she used the constraint to build something…
CrimeThe New York Ripper (1982) Review
The New York Ripper (1982) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Lucio Fulci made a giallo about a killer who murders women and quacks like a duck on the telephone. It was seized in Britain, refused certification…
CrimeStreetwalkin’ (1985) Review
Streetwalkin' (1985) rates 5 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A Concorde Pictures production shot in New York in about three weeks, with Melissa Leo in her first lead role eight years before her career started, and a structure…
CrimeSharky’s Machine (1981) Review
Sharky's Machine (1981) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Burt Reynolds directed himself in an Atlanta police thriller with a jazz score, a surveillance structure and a genuinely nasty streak, and it is the best film he…
CrimeStreet Girls (1975) Review
Street Girls (1975) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A father searches Eugene, Oregon for a daughter who has disappeared into the local trade, in a film co-written by Barry Levinson seven years before he directed anything,…
CrimeMs. 45 (1981) Review
Ms. 45 (1981) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Abel Ferrara made a rape-revenge film with a mute protagonist, almost no dialogue and a budget of around sixty thousand dollars, and Zoe Lund's performance is better than…
ActionNighthawks (1981) Review
Nighthawks (1981) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Stallone and Billy Dee Williams are New York decoy cops assigned to an international terrorist, and Rutger Hauer is so much better than the film around him that he…
ActionAvenging Angel (1985) Review
Avenging Angel (1985) rates 3 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The sequel recast its lead, aged the character to university student, and converted a squalid character piece into a revenge picture with a real estate conspiracy. It is…
CrimeDark Blue (2002) Review
Dark Blue (2002) rates 8 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Kurt Russell plays a third-generation LAPD officer who plants evidence as a matter of routine, set in the week before the Rodney King verdict. James Ellroy wrote the…
CrimeAngel (1984) Review
Angel (1984) rates 4 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. New World Pictures built a film around the tagline about a high school honour student who works Hollywood Boulevard at night, and the premise is the problem. What is…