In the Line of Fire

In the Line of Fire

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
Produced by Jeff Apple
Written by Jeff Maguire
Starring
Music by Ennio Morricone
Cinematography John Bailey
Edited by Anne V. Coates
Production
company
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date
  • July 9, 1993 (1993-07-09)
Running time
 128 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $40 million[1]
Box office $177 million

In the Line of Fire is a 1993 American action thriller film, directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich and Rene Russo.[2] Written by Jeff Maguire, the film is about a disillusioned and obsessed former CIA agent who attempts to assassinate the President of the United States and the Secret Service agent who tracks him. Eastwood's character is the sole active-duty Secret Service agent remaining from the detail guarding John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, at the time of his assassination in 1963. The film also stars Dylan McDermott, Gary Cole, John Mahoney, and Fred Thompson.

The film was co-produced by Columbia Pictures and Castle Rock Entertainment, with Columbia handling distribution. Eastwood and Petersen also originally offered the role of Leary to Robert De Niro, who turned it down due to scheduling conflicts with A Bronx Tale.[3] After In the Line of Fire, Eastwood directed every film he starred in, until 2012's Trouble with the Curve.

Plot

Secret Service Agents Frank Horrigan and Al D'Andrea meet with members of a counterfeiting group at a marina. The group's leader, Mendoza, tells Frank that he has identified D'Andrea as an undercover agent, and forces him to prove his loyalty by putting a gun to D'Andrea's head and pulling the trigger. Frank shoots Mendoza's men, identifies himself as an agent, and arrests the counterfeiter.

Horrigan investigates a complaint from a landlady about an apartment's absent tenant. He finds a collage of photographs and newspaper articles on famous assassinations, a model-building magazine, and a Time cover with the President's head circled. When Frank and his partner return with a search warrant, only one photograph remains, which shows a much younger Frank standing behind John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963. Horrigan is the only remaining active agent who was guarding the President that day, and he is wracked with guilt over his failure to react quickly enough to the first shot, shielding Kennedy from the subsequent fatal bullet, which could have saved the President's life. This guilt drove Horrigan to drink excessively; eventually his family left him.

Horrigan receives a phone call from the tenant, who calls himself "Booth". He tells Horrigan that, like John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, he plans to kill the President, who is running for reelection and is making many public appearances around the country. Horrigan, despite his age, asks to return to the Presidential Protective Detail, where he begins a relationship with fellow agent Lilly Raines.

Booth continues to call Horrigan as part of his "game," even though he knows that his calls are being traced. He mocks the agent's failure to protect Kennedy but calls him a "friend". Booth escapes Horrigan and D'Andrea after one such call from Lafayette Park, but unknowingly leaves fingerprints in the process. The FBI matches the prints, but because the person's identity is classified, they cannot disclose it to the Secret Service. The FBI does notify the CIA.

At a campaign event in Chicago, Booth pops a decorative balloon. Horrigan, who has the flu, mistakes the pop for a gunshot. Because of this error, he is removed from the protective detail, but he is left in charge of the Booth case. Horrigan and D'Andrea learn from the CIA that Booth is Mitch Leary, a former assassin who has suffered a mental breakdown and is now a "predator". Leary, who has already killed several people as he prepares for the assassination, uses his model-making skills to build a zip gun out of composite material to evade metal detectors and hides the bullets and springs in a keyring.

D'Andrea confides to Frank that he is going to retire immediately because of nightmares about the Mendoza incident, but Horrigan is able to dissuade him from doing so. After Leary taunts Frank about the President facing danger in California, the two agents chase him across Washington rooftops, and Leary shoots D'Andrea. Frank asks Raines to reassign him to the protective detail when the President visits Los Angeles, but a television crew films him mistaking a bellboy at the hotel for a security threat, and he must again leave the detail.

Frank connects Leary to a bank employee's murder and learns that Leary, who has made a large campaign contribution, is among the guests at a campaign dinner at the hotel. He sees the President approach Leary and jumps into the path of the assassin's bullet, saving the President's life. As the Secret Service quickly removes the President, Leary uses Horrigan – who is wearing a bulletproof vest – as a hostage to escape to the hotel's external elevator. The agent uses his earpiece to tell Raines and sharpshooters where to aim; although they miss Leary, Frank defeats him. The would-be-assassin chooses to fall to his death from the elevator.

Frank, now a hero, retires, as his fame makes it impossible for him to do his job. He and Raines find a farewell message from Leary on Frank's answering machine. Frank and Raines leave the house and visit the Lincoln Memorial.

Cast

Production

Producer Jeff Apple began developing In the Line of Fire in the mid-1980s. He had planned on making a movie about a Secret Service Agent on detail during the Kennedy assassination since his boyhood. Apple was inspired and intrigued by a vivid early childhood memory of meeting Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson in person, surrounded by Secret Service Agents with earpieces in dark suits and sunglasses. The concept later struck Apple as an adolescent watching televised replays of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1991, writer Jeff Maguire came aboard and completed the script that would become the movie.[4]

Filming began in late 1992 in Washington, D.C.[1] Scenes in the White House were filmed on an existing set, while an Air Force One interior set had to be built at a cost of $250,000.[1]

A subplot of the film is the President's re-election campaign. For the scenes of campaign rallies, the filmmakers used digitally altered footage from the campaign events of President George H.W. Bush and then-Governor Bill Clinton.[1]

The movie also inserted digitized images from 1960s Clint Eastwood movies into the Kennedy assassination scenes. As Jeff Apple described it to the Los Angeles Times, Clint "gets the world's first digital haircut".[5]

Reception

Critical response

In the Line of Fire was released in United States theaters in July 1993. The film received mostly positive reviews, receiving a 95% "Certified Fresh" positive rating by top film critics based on 64 reviews with an average rating of 7.8 out of 10 and a 79% positive audience rating based on 53,265 reviews.[6] Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four, writing: "Most thrillers these days are about stunts and action. In the Line of Fire has a mind."[7]

Box office

The film was a considerable financial success as well, earning $176,997,168 worldwide[8] (over $102 million in North America and $74 million in other territories), while its budget was about $40 million.

Accolades

Television series

In September 2015, it was announced that the film will be adapted into a television series.[10]

References

Citations
  1. 1 2 3 4 Hughes, p.80
  2. ↑ Eller, Claudia (July 13, 1993). "In the Line of Fire: Whose Movie Is It, Anyway?". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 27, 2010.
  3. ↑ Crocker, John (22 September 2011). "MOVIE FEATURE: 10 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT... ROBERT DE NIRO". Red Bull. Archived from the original on May 30, 2015. Retrieved 15 June 2015.
  4. ↑ Turan, Kenneth (July 9, 1993). "'Fire' lines up a worthy villain for Clint". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  5. ↑ Galbraith, Jane (July 11, 1993). "A look inside Hollywood and the movies 'Line of Fire' Gives Crowd Control a New Meaning". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 13, 2011.
  6. ↑ "In the Line of Fire (1993)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
  7. ↑ Ebert, Roger (July 9, 1993). "In the Line of Fire". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  8. ↑ Box Office Information for In the Line of Fire. The Numbers. Retrieved September 6, 2013.
  9. ↑ "The 50 greatest heroes and the 50 greatest villains of all time" (PDF). American Film Institute. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 7, 2011. Retrieved March 13, 2012.
  10. ↑ Porter, Matt (21 September 2015). "IN THE LINE OF FIRE SERIES IN THE WORKS AT NBC". IGN. Retrieved 6 January 2015.
Bibliography
  • Hughes, Howard (2009). Aim for the Heart. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84511-902-7. 
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