Tommy Bond

The premise is good. It has decent production values. It feels like it could be really good. And then... Either the Director or writer is an idiot (more on that soon)… or the editor is… You cannot sight a rifle over that distance (and that necessary caliber) and plick, plick - boom, boom (silencers and round size ain't that good for that calibre and at that distance) into a wall above several security guards, protection teams etc., without anyone noticing. (Yes he has a special gun, but it can't defy physics). Ridiculous. It would have been far better if the scene was juxtaposed against the previous one and was shown as the Jackal sighting in (when no one was there) and the cleaner doing his business. It would have felt a lot cleverer too. That actually would have been good and raised tension. Also, why would the Jackal, in this day and age, feel the need to blow things up to cover his escape - talk about hansel and gretel breadcrumbs. Very unnecessary, and especially in the case of the car, unprofessional (crikey, just burn it up like low level criminals in a housing estate if you must - no CCTV there, and no one would bat an eyelid for weeks). And then we are taken to the setup of the show, the Jackal v the… most amazing secret agent ever (who happens to be female, and black - and a strong independent woman obviously. If she didn't have a husband, I wouldn't have been surprised). The Jackal is a cerebral nerd (likes chess sets btw) and a bit of a sweet soul, who only wishes for a simple family life (with what must be millions in the bank already - he should probably retire) and she is a slightly, nay mildly, an angst ridden family man* that is also a weapon expert, investigate queen, interrogator, and an all round hard arse Mary Jane. She could probably change a car engine with one hand while juggling to be honest. As mentioned, the fearless investigator is nearly flawless - except that she's trying to live a normal life amongst her unsuspecting family (*yes I know). because all heros need a flaw, right, and that's obviously it… Family life. Oh the turmoil. Yawn. The dialogue is awful, and as mentioned before, the editor needs ditching, as does the scriptwriter (I'm giving the director a pass because he captures a good visual pastiche of a spy thriller). If they had flipped the two actors into the opposite roles, I think the script may have possibly worked better for them both. Every line Lashana Lynch delivers is wooden, and every line Freddy Redmaybe delivers, cries out for more emotion. Neither sound believable. Maybe it wouldn't make a difference. Maybe it's just that the script is awful. Maybe, like GOT and LOTR: Rings of Power, this is what happens when you spread the source material too thinly over bread. 2nd edit: the MI6(MI5, SAS, Sniper, most amazing) woman, and she is the mole. It's the only possible redemption for a terrible story. And at this point who care

If the Matrix, Rick and Morty, Jackie Chan, Kubrick and Tarantino got blended together with a large dose of LSD and amphetamine, the subsequent movie would be a lot like this one! It's bonkers, silly, over the top, and even managed to be poignant at times. However, the plot is thinner than a rizla paper, and the dialogue is mediocre at best. The trick it pulls when you first watch it, is making you think it's a completely chaotic mish-mash with some deeper layers to be peeled back for the more discerning thinker, when, it's actually a slightly overlong and quite formulaic, middle aged nihilism vs existentialism musing played out in full psychedelic technicolour. The pace of the film is one of its strengths, but unfortunately also one of its weaknesses, as character development is pretty much non-existent. Did it deserve as many Oscars as it received? Definitely not. Is it as good as all the 5* reviews say it is? Not at all. Am I glad I watched it? Certainly.