Lori and I got sucked in the original Day of the Jackal movie in HD last night. It's interesting how the pacing in movies has changed since just 1973. There are so many scenes in Jackal that would be on the cutting room floor. Scenes of people handing bits of paper back and forth, for example. Now directors just let us assume that information gets from here to there.
At the same time though, this very long (2:30) movie actually doesn't have a lot of twists. The detective gets leads on the assassin almost immediately. And every lead they get turns out to be correct. Including the last few scenes where the detective is literally just walking around and talking to security guards to get the lead. Though I sometimes find the frenetic pace of today's movies frustrating, at least they spare some scene to show leads that fall through, or dead ends. If it's just a chase with no wrong paths it's not very interesting.
Another thing I noticed is how much goes unsaid in the movie. People like to talk about the first Star Wars and the great the scene were Luke looks off into the night sky, because it has no dialog. Yeah, ok. But that's just how they made movies back then. I like that style too, but the movie has to be long enough for it, and in today's movies we expect that a long movie means a lot of content, so the silent stuff has to get left on the floor.
All in all, probably not worth the time I spent on it. The ending fell flat. The acting was cold. The process elements of the investigation were boring. I know this movie gets a lot of credit on IMDB, but I just think it was dull.
Posted by jherr at January 8, 2007 10:54 AMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
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