• Rating:
• Genre: Action
• Movie Type: Political Thriller, Action Thriller
• Themes: Assassination Plots, Protecting the Innocent, Bodyguards
• Director: Wolfgang Petersen
• Main Cast: Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich, Rene Russo, Dylan McDermott, Gary Cole
• Release Year: 1993
• Country: US
• Run Time: 127 minutes
• MPAA Rating: R

Plot

Clint Eastwood delivers one of his finest performances, as a secret service agent haunted by his past in Wolfgang Petersen's taut thriller In the Line of Fire. Eastwood plays Frank Horrigan, a secret service agent who keeps thinking back to November 22, 1963, when, as an agent hand-picked by President Kennedy, he became one of the few agents to have lost a president to an assassin. Decades later, psychotic Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) is stalking another president (Jim Curley) running for re-election. He has spent long hours studying the psyche of Frank Horrigan, and he taunts Horrigan (feeling that there is a bond between them), telling him of his plans to kill the president. After his conversation with Leary, Horrigan makes sure he is assigned to presidential protection duty. Horrigan has no intention of failing his president this time around, and he is more than willing to take a bullet. But everything goes Leary's way -- he is smart and cagey and the president's aides refuse to alter the itinerary. As the election draws closer, Horrigan's chances to catch Leary look to be less and less a possibility, and he begins to doubt his own abilities -- both now and in the past, when Kennedy was murdered. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Review

Among the American films of German director Wolfgang Peterson, who achieved his international breakthrough with the submarine drama Das Boot (1981), In the Line of Fire may be the most respected and successful. The movie fulfills all the expectations that one might have for an action thriller. Much of the film's success owes to the performances of leads Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich. Eastwood turns in another variation of the loner role that he pioneered in Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, but this is an older, mellower Eastwood, who adds more dimensions to his traditionally limited characters. His performance here is in the same weathered vein as his Oscar-winning work in Unforgiven. Malkovich, well-versed in playing demented geniuses, is equally convincing in the more extravagant role of the diabolical, chameleon-like, would-be assassin. ~ Brendon Hanley, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Clint Eastwood - Frank Horrigan
• John Malkovich - Mitch Leary
• Rene Russo - Lilly Raines
• Dylan McDermott - Al D'Andrea
• Gary Cole - Bill Watts

Fred Dalton Thompson - Harry Sargent; John Mahoney - Sam Campagna; Jim Curley - President; Sally Hughes - First Lady; Clyde Kusatsu - Jack Okura; Steve Hytner - Tony Conducci; Tobin Bell - Mendoza; Patrika Darbo - Pam Magnus; John Heard - Professor Riger; Robert Alan Beuth - Man at Bank; Eric Bruskotter - Young Agent; Richard G. Camphuis - Party Fat Cat; Carl Ciarfalio - CIA Agent Collins; Cylk Cozart - Agent Cozart; Ryan Cutrona - LAPD,Brass; Susan Lee Hoffman - Woman at Bank; Rick Hurst - Bartender; Tyde Kierney - Police Captain Howard; Brian Libby - FBI Supervisor; Lawrence Lowe - FBI Technician; Walt MacPherson - Hunter; Joshua Malina - Agent Chavez; Anthony Peck - FBI Official; Elsa Raven - Leary's Landlady; William G. Schilling - Sanford Riggs; Bob Schott - Jimmy Hendrickson; Arthur Senzy - Paramedic; Gregory Alan Williams - Matt Wilder; Alan Toy - Walter Wickland; Donna Hamilton - Reporter at Dulles; Jane Jenkins; Janet Hirshenson; Juan A. Riojas - Raul; Aaron Michael Lacey - Police Officer; Robert Peters - Hunter; Michael Kirk - Computer Technician/Bates

Credit

Michael Stone - Camera Operator; J. Apple - Producer; John Bailey - Cinematographer; Anne V. Coates - Editor; Gail Katz - Executive Producer; Lilly Kilvert - Production Designer; David Lester - Production Designer; Kara Lindstrom - Set Designer; Jeff Maguire - Screenwriter; Ennio Morricone - Composer (Music Score); Wolfgang Petersen - Director; Wolfgang Petersen - Executive Producer; Erica Phillips - Costume Designer; Don Reddy - Camera Operator; David Valdes - Executive Producer; John Warnke - Art Director; Jeff Apple - Producer; Jane Jenkins - Casting; Janet Hirshenson - Casting; John Horton - Consultant/advisor; Jann K. Engel - Set Designer

Similar Movies

The Bodyguard; Blown Away; Nick of Time; The Assignment; The Jackal; 24 [TV Series]; Placebo Effect; Blood Work; The Manchurian Candidate; Blind Horizon; The Sentinel; End Game

Review Danner Fire Line