Frank Horrigan (Eastwood) is one of the oldest active agents in the system. His current assignments have him undercover going up against counterfeiters with his new partner, Agent Al D'Andrea (Dylan McDermott). When Frank gets a call to check out an apartment that has obvious hints at a presidential assassination, we start to learn that Frank was one of the men running beside J.F.K.'s car in Dallas, and the soon-to-be assassin seems to know this. In fact, when he calls Frank, we find out the man is an admirer of him and the two start to form a strange connection.
Frank asks the Service's Director (John Mahoney from Frasier) to be put on Presidential Protection detail, much to the chagrin of the detail's Agent-In-Charge Bill Watts (Gary Cole of Office Space fame) who seems to have something against Eastwood's character. This change in positions also introduces a new agent in Lily Raines (Rene Russo), and Frank and she quickly form a bond despite the age difference.
As Frank tries to keep up with the younger agents, he and the killer (whom the viewers learn early on is played by John Malkovich) continue to have verbal sparring sessions over tapped and traced phones, and it seems that Malkovich's character is trying to get Frank to realize that the two of them have something in common, but to reveal that in this review would give too much away.
While not as action-packed as I would like for a Secret Agent/Protect the President style movie, there is a lot of good character development in In the Line of Fire, and the acting is really good. Eastwood slips into his classic Dirty Harry role a bit, but that isn't a bad thing. In general, this movie is something worth seeing, but not necessarily owning. Special features are comprised of only a couple of documentaries but nothing really interesting unless you already find their subject matter riveting. In the end, In the Line of Fire is rental-worthy only.
