- These are not our citizens. This is not our war. We no longer engage in political assassinations. Leave this case to Henry, it's an order. To pour from empty to empty, I probably will not and go to the essence of the film. And it lies not so much in the fact that “terrorism is terrible” (after all, this bitter truth we were able to learn like the alphabet), but in the ease with which you can break a person and make him what he is not. So Annibal Ramirez was an honest and kind man, a caring father and a loving husband, as well as an officer in the US Army Navy. True, he was a Cuban by birth and constantly faced with oblique glances directed at him, but as has already been said, Officer Ramirez is a kind and reserved person, and therefore he drove the offense farther away and smiled at those people who looked at him with contempt. And so it would have been if the hero was not detained by Mossad agents because the hero looked like the number one terrorist - Carlos "Jackal" Sanchez. Since then, the hero’s life has changed dramatically, as he is recruited by CIA agent Henry Phil and plans to turn a kind and naive sailor into a cold-blooded killer and terrorist. Yeah, that's the bait catch.
And under the pressure of a CIA agent, for whom Annibal Ramirez is only a tool and pressure of Mossad agent Amos, who sees the hero not as a weapon, but as a living person and treats him accordingly, the former Navy officer changes before his eyes. Uncertainty disappears, and instead of looking at the world, the eyes of a predator look at the world. But despite all these external changes and changes of character, Ramirez has remained the same and he tries to fight his own inner beast that released Amos and Henry Phil. A battle with himself, a battle with terrorists and a battle with French intelligence. Well, don't say that, and Annibal Ramirez is waiting for merry days.
What else can I say about this movie? Cranberries? Well, it is not that very much, but it is, only bears, balalaikas, and evil KGB agents will not be thrown in the face of the viewer, and because everything related to the Russians is perceived exactly as it was in films about a British intelligence agent under the code name 007, namely, as fiction.
Another comparison with the James Bond films is that there is always something going on in the frame. Jackal, something blows up, Ramirez is training in Siberia, well, or fighting for his life somewhere in Libya and all this with a characteristic half-smile, half-mockery watching agent Phil and sometimes even wonder who is more dangerous - terrorist number one or deputy of the Paris department of the CIA? After all, both of these guys are ready for their goals to drown the whole world in blood.
Actors? What about the actors? We know them all, and we know they always play well, regardless of the script or genre, and this film is no exception. Ben Kingsley plays a rather familiar image for him - a harsh, but at the same time wise and insanely human character. In principle, not only Sir Ben Kingsley plays a familiar image for himself, but Donald Sutherland is a serial killer in the service of the government, who can only be conditionally called a “good guy”. But with Aidanne Quinn I was not familiar and now I intend to correct this annoying blunder, because the actor managed to embody on the screen two absolutely different characters and embody masterfully.
What's the result? A good and high-quality spy thriller, where the action does not sag for a minute, where the actors play very well, where the dialogue was spelled out masterfully, and the pleasant soundtrack adds to the film attractiveness in my eyes. Why didn’t the film become famous in our country? Perhaps the whole thing is that 1997 was rich in good films and the film by Christian Duguet was lost against their background, or maybe because the film did not have proper advertising? The reasons for this were many, but there is no one weighty enough to miss this film out of sight if you like spy action movies in the best traditions of 007.
7 out of 10