Fantastic!

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I've seen 20+ Eastwood movies and he has done a good job with both characters, Pardner and angry guy. This isn't the one with Pardner. If you want a real treat, watch Paint Your Wagon and hear him sing love songs. I'm not kidding. The treat isn't the love songs, they're the weakest link in the show, it's him trilling them out.OK, back to this flick. It has a fantastic cast. Well, it has Eastwood and that's fantastic. It also has some action AND some old jokes. Seriously, he was old and they plowed that comedic field very well.The only fail for me was Russo. Ever since she advised kids to not take school seriously I have found her repugnant in every way.Russo aside, this is a decent show. I can watch it every 7 - 10 years.

In the Line of Fire is an insanely entertaining action/suspense film from 1993, starring (the great) Clint Eastwood as the aging secret service agent Frank Horrigan, cast opposite of him, in the role of the villain, is John Malkovich who delivers what's probably the most inspired performance of his career, as the fiendishly vindictive rogue agent/assassin, Mitch Leary. Also starring is a young and still very beautiful Rene Russo and she quite capably fills the roll of the young-female-secret-service-agent and she's also Clint's squeeze or "love interest" in the film - although it is a highly contentious relationship between the two at first. But, as if you couldn't guess it, Clint's charm and heroism eventually win's her over. Also starring as Eastwoods partner, in what's probably his only notable film role, is Dylan McDermott, who, when in the presence of such an inspired cast and helmed by a director of Wolfgang Peterson's caliber, even he rose to the occasion.This film is masterful by the way it's creates such a potent atmosphere of tension between the two main character's, in which we see Eastwood pitted against Malkovich, in the classic good-guy vs. bad-guy format and the events that transpire, play out in the form of what's an incredibly exciting game of cat-and-mouse; and since it revolves around assassinating the President, the games stakes could not be any higher. I say "game", because that's how Malkovich's character, Mitch Leary, treats it as and he's unfailing sporting of his grand scheme of assassination towards his nemesis Frank Horrigan and agents of the Secret Service; and he constantly keeps them in the loop all the way through to conclusion, which brilliantly leads up to the films climatic ending. But there's more to say before we get there. Just remember that there's apparently an established code of etiquette among psychotic assassin's - one which colors greatly this movies mood.Throughout the movie Leary taunts his pursuers through a series of phone calls, that are always flavored with cryptic threats, which tends to cast a dark pall over the film. Though it goes well beyond that (especially in the second hour of the film), as the tension only intensifies, when it becomes obvious that there's a killer on the loose. Malkovich plays his role with a remarkable level of energy and conviction and his looming presence cast's a very long shadow over his enemies which, impressively, is the Secret Service AND the FBI. Yet it's on the conscious of agent Horrigan, that the threat of Leary weighs most heavily, as the ever-present threat of this shadowy specter remains at large. All this tension effectively builds up into a vast morass of terrible uncertainty which must be vanquished, if the nightmare that is Mitch Leary is ever to end. If that doesn't spell it out for you here's another, the tension that's created is: Positively Palpable.Throughout the second half of the film the ante is upped and Leary is actively on a killing-spree, murdering several people who he perceives as being in the way and/or knowing too much and for Horrigan, one of his victims comes very close to home. Who might it be? All while following the president's re-election bid/campaign trail around the country, which at a series of campaign rallies, leads us up to some of the films best and most exciting moments; once again pitting old, steely-eyed Clint against his nemesis - Mitch Leary, who also happens to be a master of disguise. With Horrigan's obsessive nature towards catching (or killing) Leary, not to mention all the additional safety precautions he ask's for on the Presidents behalf, this invariably (and quickly) causes a lot of internal friction between himself, other members of the Sercret Service, all the way up the ladder to the White House Chief of Staff (played by the late Frederick Dalton Thompson).In lieu of Horrigan's efficient investigating and Leary's devious, but very sporting-like MO, this effectively ensures that the game will always be kept very close and the stakes are always at their highest: Presidential Assassination; this again, creates profoundly intense levels of suspense, which are potently and thrillingly sustained until the very end of the movie. In the Line of Fire is a lot more than just a great action film with "all it's guns blazing"; it's a film that has very few rivals when measured in the terms of it's compellingly gripping levels of suspense and 23 years after it's release, it still, very much remains among Eastwood's best films. A tall order for any movie and the only other movie of Clint's that has anywhere near this level of suspense and nervous tension, is the first Dirty Harry film - but even that falls well short of In the Line of Fire. Which, as time has proved it to be, a true heavy-weight contender in the realm known as: The Suspense Genre.

Leads Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich were both very good in this. As Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan and potential presidential assassin Mitch Leary they play an interesting enough cat and mouse game. The back story has Horrigan as the last surviving member of the detail on duty when President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Already tormented by the memory, he's tormented further by Leary, who toys with him as he openly shares his plan. That interplay is well done, but it does seem to drag on for too long, perhaps because Leary's motive in tormenting Horrigan wasn't especially clear. Why so much obsession with Horrigan? I never really understood that. Why not just seek out the chance to assassinate the president? Another point I wasn't clear on is why Horrigan - clearly aging and out of shape - would be put back on the presidential protection team, against the wishes of the head of the detail? It moves the story forward but honestly makes no sense.The weakest part of the movie revolved around agent Lilly Raines, played by Rene Russo. Russo's performance was fine, but the character didn't hit home with me - especially when a "quasi" romance between Raines and Horrigan was introduced. Why do that? The age difference made it unlikely to say the least. It doesn't really move the story forward at all, but it does seem to detract a bit from the character's credibility. I mean, I can understand Horrigan's interest. Russo is lovely. But I couldn't wrap my head around why Raines would be the least bit interested.After playing the cat and mouse for a couple of hours, it all leads up to an exciting enough climax. All the performances here are fine, but the story seemed to me to be a bit lacking in some ways. (6/10)

Wolfgang Petersen directed this thriller that stars Clint Eastwood as veteran Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan, who lives with the bitter memory of failing to save the life of President John F. Kennedy on that fateful November 22, some thirty years previous. John Malkovich plays former CIA agent Mitch Leary, who is enraged at his firing, and decides to assassinate the current President, and cruelly uses Frank in his plan, taunting him with his failure, and how he will lose a second president, something Frank is determined to prevent, even if he has to take the assassin's bullets himself... Exciting and quite well acted and directed film is also most interesting for its plot and as a character study of two very different men.