Books, Arts & Manners: Thrillers, with and without Frills

THRILLERS seem to proliferate in the summer, perhaps on the assumption that in the hot weather chills are especially welcome. And so they are when they are as well made as In the Line of Fire. Written by Jeff Maguire, a 41-year-old who was about to quit Los Angeles in disgust, his screenplay was accepted, then rejected, by a number of stars until Clint Eastwood took it on. Eastwood gives it one of his by now customary solid and intelligent performances. The current buzz is that he keeps getting better and better, and surpasses himself in this one. Actually, he has been good for a long time, and he is no better here; it is just that American audiences and reviewers wax sentimental about stars with prolonged staying power. If Lassie were still with us, she’d be right up there with George C. Scott.

This is the story of Secret Serviceman Frank Horrigan, who is close to retirement age but still a top agent, except that he is haunted by his one fiasco: he did not take a bullet for JFK when he was guarding him in Dallas. Now he finds himself looking for a man who is threatening the current (fictional) President on his re-election campaign trail. Presidents are menaced by all sorts of cranks, but this threat, Horrigan feels, is serious. For this potential killer, by a trail of newspaper clippings he deliberately plants, reveals that he knows exactly what he is doing, including disturbing allusions to Horrigan’s one costly failure. And forthwith Horrigan starts getting nocturnal phone calls from this man of many aliases and faces, whose deadly skills are no less numerous. He has even built a device that makes it virtually impossible to trace his calls although Horrigan’s phone is bugged.

JS

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John Simon

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THRILLERS seem to proliferate in the summer, perhaps on the assumption that in the hot weather chills are especially welcome. And so they are when they are as well made as In the Line of Fire. Written by Jeff Maguire, a 41-year-old who was about to quit Los Angeles in disgust, his screenplay was accepted, then rejected, by a number of stars until Clint Eastwood took it on. Eastwood gives it one of his by now customary solid and intelligent performances. The current buzz is that he keeps getting better and better, and surpasses himself in this one. Actually, he has been good for a long time, and he is no better here; it is just that American audiences and reviewers wax sentimental about stars with prolonged staying power. If Lassie were still with us, she’d be right up there with George C. Scott.

This is the story of Secret Serviceman Frank Horrigan, who is close to retirement age but still a top agent, except that he is haunted by his one fiasco: he did not take a bullet for JFK when he was guarding him in Dallas. Now he finds himself looking for a man who is threatening the current (fictional) President on his re-election campaign trail. Presidents are menaced by all sorts of cranks, but this threat, Horrigan feels, is serious. For this potential killer, by a trail of newspaper clippings he deliberately plants, reveals that he knows exactly what he is doing, including disturbing allusions to Horrigan’s one costly failure. And forthwith Horrigan starts getting nocturnal phone calls from this man of many aliases and faces, whose deadly skills are no less numerous. He has even built a device that makes it virtually impossible to trace his calls although Horrigan’s phone is bugged.