Books by Frederick Forsyth were all the rage at one time, and his 1971 novel, The Day Of The Jackal, was a massive bestseller, converted to film, by Fred Zinnemann soon after it came out. It told the pulse pounding story of a lone sniper out to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle. The book and film were hits even though the end was known—de Galle did not die by a bullet. The thrill was in the chase to catch the man codenamed Jackal, and stop the killing.
Over half-a-century later, with the approval of the now 86-year-old author, the Jackal gets a contemporary retelling, with Eddie Redmayne playing the mercenary who is a master of disguise and a skilled sniper.
The 10-part series (on JioCinema) opens in Munich with an elderly janitor entering an office. He is an imposter—Jackal in disguise—setting motion a plan to kill a German politician. The shot that killed that target was taken from an impossible distance and baffles law enforcement in Germany. At the MI6 headquarters in London, weapons specialist Bianca (Lashana Lynch) figures out that a special gun was crafted that could be dissembled to evade metal detectors. If the gunmaker can be found, she tells her sceptical teammates, they can reach the assassin.
For this, she bullies and blackmails an Irish asset, and her methods result in tragedy, which she shrugs off as collateral damage. Both the Jackal aka Charles and Biaca are portrayed as tenacious and driven, both have families that are affected by the exigencies of their work. Charles has a lovely, trusting wife, Nuria (Ursula Corbero), who lives in a magnificent villa in Spain with their infant son, and her family.
Bianca’s husband, Paul (Saul Rimi), is understanding, but her teenage daughter, Jasmine (Florisa Kamara), resents that her mother is never present for her. She skips PTA meetings and leaves uneaten a meal that Jasmine has lovingly prepared for the family.
The lifestyle of Charles has an element of glamour, but Bianca is an ordinary working woman, who is willing to go beyond the call of duty; she believes the Jackal will kill again and must be stopped. Meanwhile Charles targets a man who reneged on payment – it’s bad for his business if clients stiff him—and then starts preparing for the assassination of wealthy tech entrepreneur (Khalid Abdalla), who has upset the billionaires’ cabal by launching a software that will ensure total financial transparency.
The series does not follow the fast pace that is the accepted style for current thrillers. The Jackal’s meticulous planning and Bianca’s gradual closing in on him are absorbing, but the thrills are not artificially pumped up. The only problem is that modernizing the classic thriller has taken away its individuality and turned into one of many series using similar tropes. Still, its terrific action set pieces, beautiful locations and dazzling cinematography, and of course the two leads, make it worth a watch. Just BTW, Indian thriller makers could learn how to use background music effectively— enhance the scene, but not drown it in noise.
The Day Of The Jackal
Directed by Brian Kirk, Anthony Philipson, Paul Wilmshurst, Anu Menon.
Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Lashana Lynch, Ursula Corbero and others
On JioCinema
