Word: stale
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Director Michael Caton-Jones has created a confused jumble of bad accents, loud music, stale techno-babble and Richard Gere in a lifeless remake of the 1973 hit The Day of the Jackal. Traveling by minivan and rotating haircolors faster than Dennis Rodman, The Jackal (Bruce Willis) stalks a mystery target while the FBI scrambles to catch up with him, using the expertise of former IRA terrorist Declan Mulqueen (Richard Gere). When Mulqueen and Jackal finally meet, sparks fly...and a gay kiss occurs. OK, not really, but it sure would make this dopey flick a lot more interesting...
Having experienced The Jackal (working title: Aging Hunks Shoot It Out), I wish to publicly retract that statement. Director Michael Caton-Jones, of Rob Roy fame (or ignominy, depending on how you see it), has created for us a confused jumble of bad accents, loud music, stale techno-babble and Richard Gere. The studio swears it's a remake of the 1973 thriller Day Of The Jackal, but this Jackal resembles neither its predecessor nor the Frederick Forsythe novel on which it was based, except that it contains an international terrorist known only as "The Jackal...
There is deep, honest feeling here. It seems unbearably sad, for instance, that Kincaid, having remade herself as a writer of literary English, has almost forgotten the island patois that is her brother's only language. But her account is soaked in stale emotion, and it seems long past time for this gifted writer to tell us something...
...Brooks is but one painful example of talent going to waste: it's another case of good actors trying their damnedest with bad lines. Kyra Sedgwick, James Spader, Albert Brooks and Helen Mirren are all fine, subtle performers; here, they are relegated to stale, two-dimensional stereo-types. Lumet may as well have subtitles put in key scenes: "This man is evil, because all he cares about is money. This man is good, because he really cares about making people better...
...hiring and firing Michael Ovitz. More recently the stock has lagged the market, dogged by boycotts by religious groups protesting everything from racy movies to personnel policies and, potentially far worse for shareholders, by concerns that the formula for the Mouse's wholesome animated films has grown stale. Never mind that Disney shares, including dividends, have risen an average of 15.6% annually for the past 10 years, vs. 14.3% for Standard & Poor's 500. The company has a p.r. problem...