In the Line of Fire
A Secret Service agent confronts his past to stop a presidential assassin.
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In the Line of Fire is a 1993 American political action thriller film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starring Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich, and Rene Russo. The story follows a Secret Service agent haunted by his failure to protect President John F. Kennedy as he tracks a former CIA operative plotting to assassinate the current president. The film was a critical and commercial success, earning three Academy Award nominations.
Plot
Former Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan learns during a routine investigation that a man calling himself Booth plans to assassinate the President of the United States. Booth telephones Horrigan and reveals knowledge of Horrigan's past: he was one of President Kennedy's bodyguards who failed to protect JFK on the day of his assassination. Tormented by guilt, Horrigan has become a cynical, loveless alcoholic but requests assignment to protect the current president.
He works alongside the playful-but-businesslike Lily Raines. Booth continues calling Horrigan from public telephones, allowing his calls to be traced but escaping before arrest. He taunts Horrigan about his Kennedy failure while calling him a friend. Horrigan discovers the assassin is Mitch Leary, a skilled former CIA operative who suffered a mental breakdown and now seeks revenge.
Leary is independently wealthy and tech-savvy, molding a zip gun from composite material to evade metal detectors and concealing two small bullets in a key-ring ornament. He can thus carry a functional pistol into a fundraising event where the President will speak. Horrigan's underling D'Andrea confides his intention to retire due to nightmares from a near-death incident, but Horrigan persuades him to stay. They trace one of Leary's calls and pursue him across Washington rooftops, where Leary kills D'Andrea but saves Horrigan from falling to his death.
Production
Producer Jeff Apple first started working on In the Line of Fire in the mid-1980s. As a child, he met Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson and was struck by the Secret Service agents around him, and later, watching televised replays of John F. Kennedy’s assassination as a teenager cemented the idea. After another writer failed to deliver, Jeff Maguire took over in 1991 and finished the screenplay. Disney passed on a TV version starring Tom Selleck, and in April 1992, Castle Rock Entertainment won a bidding war for the script, paying $1.4 million.
Robert De Niro was offered the role of Leary by Clint Eastwood and Wolfgang Petersen but declined because of a scheduling conflict with A Bronx Tale. Filming started in late 1992 in Washington, D.C. White House interiors used an existing set, but an Air Force One interior had to be built for $250,000. The movie’s climax was shot in the lobby and elevators of the Los Angeles Bonaventure Hotel, while earlier romantic scenes between Frank and Lilly were filmed at the nearby Biltmore Hotel.
For campaign rally scenes, the filmmakers digitally altered real footage from George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s campaigns, including a Denver stop. They also inserted digitized images from Clint Eastwood’s 1960s movies into the Kennedy assassination scenes, giving Eastwood what Apple called the world’s first digital haircut. The Secret Service cooperated with the production; a public affairs official explained that while the film would have been made anyway, they felt it was better to have some oversight. The agency did not cooperate with the films Dave and Guarding Tess, calling the former whimsical.
Release
In the Line of Fire was released in United States theaters in July 1993. It was one of the first films to have a trailer made available online, offered via AOL and downloaded 170 times in a week and a half. The film earned $15 million in its opening weekend, over $102 million in North America, and $85 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $187 million against a budget of approximately $40 million. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 96% rating based on 73 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10 and a consensus calling it a straightforward thriller of the highest order.
On Metacritic, it has a score of 74 out of 100 based on reviews from 16 critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an average grade of A. Vincent Canby of The New York Times described it as movie making of the high, smooth, commercial order that Hollywood prides itself on. Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half out of four, writing that most thrillers are about stunts and action but this film has a mind. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called it crisply entertaining, praising Malkovich's delivery as an ideal foil for Eastwood's bluntly straightforward habits.
The film received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor (John Malkovich), Best Original Screenplay (Jeff Maguire), and Best Film Editing (Anne V. Coates).
Frequently Asked Questions
Who stars in In the Line of Fire?
In the Line of Fire stars Clint Eastwood, John Malkovich, Rene Russo, Dylan McDermott, Gary Cole, Fred Dalton Thompson and John Mahoney.
When was In the Line of Fire released?
In the Line of Fire was released on 9 July 1993.
Who composed the music for In the Line of Fire?
The music for In the Line of Fire was composed by Ennio Morricone.
How long is In the Line of Fire?
In the Line of Fire has a running time of 128 minutes.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: In the Line of Fire (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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