In the Line of Fire

Clint Eastwood is respectable now. He's got several Oscars, a Director's Guild award and a fistful of praise from the French to prove it.

The flinty, violent iceman of the '70s is now an important artist. He's even an "auteur," that elusive title first coined in a Parisian cafe.

The weird thing is, it's not Eastwood who has changed. As demonstrated in his newest movie — In the Line of Fire — the old dog is still performing the same old tricks. The only major change is his hairline.

In the Line of Fire plays like a Dirty Harry flick, with the usual psycho villain and the traditionally disposable sidekick. The Secret Service-setting and political references are, ultimately, unimportant to the film. Eastwood is once again playing an obsessive man driven by raw instincts, who must redeem himself from a major foul-up.

Of course, the major foul-up happens to be the Kennedy assassination. Okay, so it was a really big foul up. All the more need for redemption. Despite being haunted by memories of Dallas in '63, his anti-social attitudes and his retirement age visage, Eastwood has stayed in the Service. But a lone nutcase (John Malkovich) is determined that Eastwood will round out his career with another dead president.

And no, the would-be assassin is not Bob Dole. It's a highly trained hitman who had previously worked for the CIA. Presumably, the job stress got to him. It's a plot twist you see coming even before you buy a ticket to the film.

In the Line of Fire contains only one slightly unusual touch to distinguish it from a typical Eastwood picture: Rene Russo, the macho femme copper in Lethal Weapon 3. This time, she's a macho femme Secret Service agent who discovers the feminine side to Eastwood's harsh exterior.

Even the suggestive sexual undercurrent in the cat-and-mouse game played between Eastwood and Malkovich is merely a throw back to the more explosive material in the earlier Eastwood film Tightrope. Granted, when Malkovich goes down on Eastwood's gun barrel, the whole movie momentarily plunges past the point of phallic symbolism.

The more-of-the-same quality of In the Line of Fire isn't surprising.

Every time Eastwood takes an artistic step forward, he reverts to an overtly commercial follow-up. In the Line of Fire is simply the expected backstep to Unforgiven's forward motion, Clint's belated — and unnecessary — safety net.

Besides, we all know that Eastwood spent most of the Kennedy years on a trail drive.