History Film / TheJackal

* NiceToTheWaiter: The Jackal is very friendly with the documents forger, polite to his banker, fakes amiability when he buys the van as "Charles Lathrop" and is very deadpan and quietly intimidating to Lamont. No prizes for guessing who tries to push their luck with him [[BlackmailBackfire and pays for it]].

* FamousNamedForeigner: Murad, the Russian mobster that hires the Jackal to avenge his son, shares his name with the protagonist of the Creator/LeoTolstoy novel ''Hadji Murat''.

* DivingSave: During the assassination assault, the FBI director is saved by being pushing out of the line of fire.

* AdaptationExplanationExtrication: On the original book and film, the reason why the authorities got their knowledge about the Jackal in the first place was their suspicion about why was the French separatist group that hired him going on a bank robbing rampage, and lucking up when their abduction of one of the group's higher-ups (that was being used as a messenger) had him tell about the Jackal. On this film, Murad's group never seems to have money issues at all (Murad just makes a quip about the Jackal being expensive before laughing it off and agreeing with a toast when the Jackal says his price) and the Russian police just happened to luck into catching some random member of the group that had somehow overheard Murad talking about the Jackal. Also compare the French knowing absolutely jack about the Jackal in the beginning vs. the FSB (through old KGB files) and FBI having enough of a dossier to immediately finger Mulqueen as a someone who may have met him once[[note]]it also does not helps that while in the original story the Jackal chose his code name at random and it was only a bizarre coincidence that one clue to find him was that one man he poached identities from was named "'''Cha'''rles '''Cal'''throp", in this version of the story it's mentioned that the Jackal had used the "Jackal" name before.[[/note]]

''The Jackal'' is a 1997 suspense thriller starring Creator/BruceWillis, Creator/RichardGere, Creator/DianeVenora, and Creator/SidneyPoitier. It was directed by Creator/MichaelCatonJones. While its title is similar to the 1973 film ''Literature/TheDayOfTheJackal'', it shares only the main story point of an anonymous assassin and some general plot elements.

* CompositeCharacter: Lamont combines the gunsmith (providing the Jackal his weapon) and the forger (unwisely tries to blackmail the Jackal) from the original story. This movie's forger character deals with the Jackal briefly and professionally and is never seen after her first appearance.

* BuryYourGays: The DC bureaucrat that Jackal had 'befriended' at the gay bar.

* ActionGirl: Major Koslova and Isabella Zanconia. The former is a veteran Russian soldier, the latter is ex-IRA [[spoiler:and is the one that finally blows the Jackal away.]]

* ByTheBookCop: FBI Agent Whiterspoon, played for tragedy. Even after he was explicitly ordered by his superior to not put the address of Isabella and her family on the case's documentation in fear of what may happen if TheMole gets his hands on it, Whiterspoon does it anyway and the Jackal ends up killing all of the agents on the house, including Koslova. Preston even calls him such as he's listening to the transcript's recording and hears that it has the address...

** Witherspoon has been a part of the case from day one and knows that Preston is not kidding when he says that he wants the location of Isabella out of the files because TheMole may get this intel. He follows procedure anyway, and gets multiple Federal agents killed, including himself. when the Jackal decides to come calling.

* AdaptationExplanationExtrication: On the original book and film, the reason why the authorities got their knowledge about the Jackal in the first place was their suspicion about why was the French separatist group that hired him going on a bank robbing rampage, and lucking up when their abduction of one of the group's higher-ups (that was being used as a messenger) had him tell about the Jackal. On this film, Murad's group never seems to have money issues at all (Murad just makes a quip about the Jackal being expensive before laughing it off and agreeing with a toast when the Jackal says his price) and the Russian police just happened to luck into catching some random member of the group that had somehow overheard Murad talking about the Jackal. Also compare the French knowing absolutely jack about the Jackal in the beginning vs. the FSB (through old KGB files) and FBI having enough of a dossier to immediately finger Mulqueen as a someone who may have met him once.