Publications Index | Encyclopedia of Trotskyism | Marxists’ Internet Archive
Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 168 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 168, October 1993.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
In the Line of Fire
Dir: Wolfgang Peterson
Clint Eastwood established his reputation through the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. He played characters like the near psychotic Harry Callaghan in Dirty Harry, or Sergio Leone’s man with no name in the Spaghetti Westerns such as A Fistful of Dollars. Life for the Eastwood characters then was simple: kill or be killed. Justice was dispensed by strong, cool headed, conscienceless loners in a world of good versus evil – even if Dirty Harry did fight dirty we were all left in no doubt that by the end of the film the villains were the ones who were dead.
But this latest film, along with his previous outing, Unforgiven, is not that simple. Eastwood plays Frank Horrigan, a veteran US secret service man who stumbles on a plot to assassinate the president. In his youth Horrigan had been assigned to J.F. Kennedy. He had been on duty the day the president had been shot and had since felt guilty that he could have done more to save Kennedy’s life. This time, he is determined to keep the president alive.
The president’s would be assassin Mitch Leary, brilliantly played by John Malkovich, contacts Horrigan and the subsequent relationship the two strike up forms the centerpiece of the film. Leary wants Horrigan to accept that society has decayed beyond repair and all that’s left is the individual’s fight for survival. ‘There is no cause worth fighting for. All we have is the game,’ he says.
In part, Horrigan agrees. He tells us that the death of JFK marked a turning point in US society and the end of the hope for peace and racial harmony which JFK personified for many people. Of course Kennedy was one of the coldest Cold War warriors and was only pushed into entertaining blacks in the White House by the millions of blacks converging on the White House lawn. Nevertheless, Horrigan’s, and his generation’s, frustrated ideals have engendered a great cynicism about American politics.
Through the film the president and those around him in his administration and the various sections of the armed body of men who defend him are revealed as stupid, morally bankrupt, cowardly and corrupt. The president is Reagan-like – a vacuous, waving buffoon who, after one attempt on his life, is ushered to safety by a vast posse of security guards and aids looking like a 1990s version of the Keystone Cops.
Leary himself is an ex-CIA assassin, trained and armed by the US state who turns against that state when it no longer needs him, much like a General Noriega figure. The CIA themselves are more keen to hide the identity of Leary than help Horrigan stop Leary killing the president.
Horrigan then is certainly not motivated by any sense of defending the integrity of the US state. He is much more motivated by a determination to ‘do a good job’, to maintain a sense of self worth by striving for the highest standards of personal achievement. It just so happens that in this case that means defeating his opponent’s attempts on the head of state’s life.
As in Unforgiven, Eastwood’s character is riven with doubt and guilt about past deeds. His frailties and weaknesses, physical and mental, push through to the surface as he struggles with his conscience and frustrations.
Socialist Review Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 27 February 2017