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Misfiring Line
By bukkhead | June 29, 2007
FILM REVIEW: ‘IN THE LINE OF FIRE’
Written by Jeff Maguire
Directed by Wolfgang Peterse
Rated R
128 mins.
I made the mistake of seeing Clint Eastwood’s In the Line of Fire (1993), well after I saw Blood Work (2002). So I found myself continually comparing the former to the latter, when it should have been the other way around. Both carry the same theme: aging law-enforcement official dealing with that tired conflict-triumvirate—sense of duty, a need to feel important, and an aging, broken body. There’s an old tradition in detective stories of the washed-out has-been, which usually evokes a strict moral code: even though he’s old and busted, the dick brings justice. The world doesn’t care, of course, but morality is morality. In the Line of Fire, though, seems to be less about morality and more about being old and busted.
Clint is Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan, old in ’93, the only active agent who was there when Kennedy was assassinated. He’s a good cop, able to bluff his way out of a hostage situation, doing us the (engage sarcasm) favor of saving his new partner, (Dylan McDermott). But he’s old, and when a new threat on the president gets personal, he wants to put back on the presidential detail. Much to the chagrin of his superiors—but then you’d guess that, since you’ve seen cop shows before.
Because the whole movie is a collection of every cop movie cliché out there. This is strictly a by-the-numbers film, but unfortunately, the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. Even your most staid and predictable police-procedural will provide a nice twist or gotcha moment—and even if that is predictable, it’s more or less why you chose the procedural in the first place. In the Line provides no such twist or gotcha moment. The film moves along from one plot element to the next, provides the requisite chase scenes and near misses, and tosses away minor characters like popcorn that misses your mouth and falls to the theater floor.
The one exception is John Malkovich, who somehow manages to rise above the simplistic plot and dull dialog. But then, he always does. I am no film expert (obviously) but it seems to me there are actors who can’t act, those who can under the right director, and those who just get it. Malkovich is defiantly in the latter class (I’d put Clint in the middle, though he is a good director, so there you go). In more than one scene, you start to have hope for the film, hope that maybe this will have been worth your time, that you will see something other than the something you have already seen a few hundred times.
But no, John plays the bad guy, and he knows better than to make us like the bad guy more than the good guy (you paying attention, Anthony Hopkins?). So by the time the film is over, you’re picking up the DVD case, inserting the disc, and wondering if your next stop at Blockbuster will be better. Fingers crossed.
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