Movieo
Poster for In the Line of Fire

In the Line of Fire

An assassin on the loose. A president in danger. Only one man stands between them…

1993 · 2h 8m · R Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen

Where to watch
Seen it?

Overview

Veteran Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan is a man haunted by his failure to save President Kennedy while serving protection detail in Dallas. Thirty years later, a man calling himself "Booth" threatens the life of the current President, forcing Horrigan to come back to protection detail to confront the ghosts from his past.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
96%
Tomatometer
Fresh

Petersen directs his film in a straightforward, workmanlike fashion-few surprises here -- and, curiously, for most of the film is better at establishing a kind of amiability than a hard tension.

Clifford Terry, Chicago Tribune
Fresh

Director Wolfgang Petersen moves the story along, but his real job is to simply stay out of the way of his two racehorse lead actors. And he does.

Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
Fresh

Every part of this film trades so heavily on Eastwood's presence that it is impossible to imagine it with anyone else in the starring role.

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
Fresh

The movie has a clear, simple thriller logic that's far more satisfying than the static variations-on-a-massacre construction of Eastwood's Dirty Harry pictures and spaghetti Westerns.

Terrence Rafferty, New Yorker
Fresh

Despite the presence of all these action-flick cliches, In the Line of Fire works. Sure, it's no more than a formula movie, but it's an effective formula movie.

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel

Comments

Talk about the film with other members

More films