History Literature / TheDayOfTheJackal

* ChestOfMedals: Zigzagged. The Jackal purchases a number of medals for his crippled veteran disguise. He then looks up what each of the medals is for and selects a subset of them that would make him look distinguished enough that anyone looking at them would accept that he is a wounded war veteran, but not so distinguished that anyone who recognizes the medals would want to know who he is or how he earned them. He ends up using just the one bravery medal, and several campaign ones.

* ForWantOfANail: If the Action Service hadn't managed to lure away Kowalski and kidnap him, they probably never would have learned about the Jackal (or at least not until it was too late).

* ArmsDealer: The man who provides The Jackal with the take-down sniper rifle is one of these.

* HowDidYouKnowIDidnt: Lebel taps all of the phones of the ''entire'' French Cabinet to identify the mole.

** However, the OAS also has a mole inside the French cabinet, the mistress of one of the ministers, who coaxes information about the investigation from him and passes it on to the Jackal.

** The Jackal gets a false passport to conceal his identity. The police detect this ploy, which gives them a name and a passport photo to use in the hunt. Had he gone by his real identity the police would never have left square one. He also steals two passports from men at airports to use as backup identities. Once the police realize this, they uncover his third disguise within hours. (Though in total fairness on this one, under most circumstances any assassin who used their ''real'' identity in their business is simply begging to be uncovered and arrested.)
** When the Jackal commits a murder, ostensibly to cover his tracks, it gives the authorities an opportunity to drop [=DeGaulle=]'s secrecy provision and hunt him openly.
** The Jackal steals the murder victim's car (having already abandoned his own car after finding out the police are looking for it). When they find the car abandoned near a provincial train station, this leads to them discovering the name and photo of his backup identity, and alerts them to the fact that [[spoiler:the Jackal has made it safely to Paris]]. The movie tries to avert this by making it very clear his car is a total wreck and will never move again. However, it still leaves the very good question of why the Jackal didn't hotwire the first 2CV he came across instead of stealing the car of his victim, which is guaranteed to be the subject of an APB in hours at best.

** By 2021 the Jackal's body would at least give investigators further clues to follow. Not just his fingerprints, but his DNA. DNA databases linking one person to another are becoming very extensive and this is known to investigators, even in cold cases. Anthropologists can study teeth and hair to not only know where the deceased was living [and eating] just before death, but even where they were born and raised. This is true even of the long dead.

** On the British side is the Foreign Office bureaucrat who interferes in the investigation simply out of pique.

* PoliceAreUseless: Averted by Lebel, who is very effective at his job, but generally the French police force is (accurately) portrayed as being very good at catching criminals. Lebel is effective partly through personal talent but also through a very effective support structure at the national and city level. The police remain on the Jackal's tail throughout the plot. Played straight when they over-confidently think they will catch The Jackal soon and dismiss Lebel.

* SedgwickSpeech: Bastien-Thiery gives one before his execution. He thinks that real French patriots would never kill him.

-> ''"This is a once in a lifetime job. Whoever does it can never work again."''

-> ''"The day of the Jackal was over."''
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-> ''"The day of the Jackal was over."''

** The Jackal brings only three bullets to the assassination. Even with supreme confidence in his aim, this gives him little room for error and only two spares in the event that the police show up. [[spoiler:So after the missed shot at [=DeGaulle=] and the shot that killed the gendarme, even if he had managed to kill Lebel before Lebel killed him, he would have had nothing left with which to shoot [=DeGaulle=] again]]

** The Jackal gets a false passport to conceal his identity. The police detect this ploy, which gives them a name and a passport photo to use in the hunt. Had he gone by his real identity the police would never have left square one. He also steals two passports from men at airports to use as backup identities. Once the police realize this, they uncover his third disguise within hours.

* CodenameTitle: The disgruntled [=OAS=] hires a professional assassin to subtract French President Charles de Gaulle. The assassin chooses the codename "Jackal" upon accepting the mission. When British Intelligence is contacted via the "old boy network", they posit that a mercenary named Charles Calthrop might be the assassin.

* ConsummateProfessional: The gunsmith is both skilled at his job, respectful of his deals with clients, and knowledgable enough to avert HaveYouToldAnyoneElse.

* ChestOfMedals: Slightly subverted. The Jackal purchases a number of medals for his crippled veteran disguise. He then looks up what each of the medals is for and selects a subset of them that would make him look distinguished enough that anyone looking at them would accept that he is a wounded war veteran, but not so distinguished that the anyone who recognizes the medals would want to know who he is or how he earned them. He ends up using just the one bravery medal, and several campaign ones.

* PunchClockVilain: The Jackal feels no animosity towards his victims, has no political or religious motivation - he's doing this for a paycheck. A large paycheck.

** The Jackal gets a false passport to conceal his identity. The police detect this ploy, which gives them a name and a passport photo to use in the hunt. Had he gone by his real identity the police would never have left square one. He also steals two passports from men at airports to use as a backup identities. Once the police realize this, they uncover his third disguise within hours.

* Bookends: The novel starts and ends with failed attempts to shoot [=DeGaulle=]. In both cases, a bullet missed his head by inches.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: Three instances where the Jackal's precautions actually help the police...
** The Jackal gets a false passport to conceal his identity. The police detect this ploy, which gives them a name and a passport photo to use in the hunt. Had he gone by his real identity the police would never have left square one.
** When the Jackal commits a murder, ostensibly to cover his tracks, it gives the authorities an opportunity to drop De Gaulle's secrecy provision and hunt him openly.
** The Jackal steals the murder victim's car instead of just using the slightly dented one he arrived with. This makes the police [[spoiler: nearly catch him]], it provides them with a name and photo of his backup identity, and alerts them to the fact that [[spoiler:the Jackal has made it safely to Paris]]. The movie tries to avert this by making it very clear his car is a total wreck and will never move again. However, it still leaves the very good question of why the Jackal didn't hotwire the first 2CV he came across instead of stealing the car of his victim, which is guaranteed to be the subject of an APB in hours at best.

* EvilCannotComprehendGood: Of a sort. The reason the Jackal [[spoiler: ultimately misses his target is that he wasn't expecting DeGaulle to bend down and give a man a kiss on the cheek instead of shaking his hand. It's implied that the Jackal forgot to consider this because he, as a foreigner, is not used to this French custom, but it's also fitting that the ultra-cool, unflappable Determinator assassin is thwarted by an act of affection.]]

** The Jackal's outsider status. For most of the novel, his lack of a fixed identity is a huge asset, as is the fact that he's not French and therefore unknown to the country's authorities. However, when he finally goes to take his shot [[spoiler: he misses because he did not expect DeGaulle to bend down to kiss a man on the cheek. The novel further suggests that this custom is foreign to "Anglo-Saxons." In a sense, the fact that the Jackal wasn't French meant he overlooked a key detail, which led to him being caught and killed by the police moments later.]]

* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: The whole plot becomes a RaceAgainstTheClock once the French figure out that the Jackal will make his move on Liberation Day, with the climax taking place on that day. The fact that the hit is targeted for a major event is justified by the fact that unlike a random simple Tuesday, De Gaulle's schedule on a major holiday cannot be casually altered at the last minute for security reasons. In any case, DeGaulle is far too proud to not make a public appearance on Liberation Day.

** However, the OAS also a mole inside the French cabinet, the mistress of one of the ministers, who coaxes information about the investigation from him and passes it on to the Jackal.