If you had made a plan to assassinate the president of the USA, would you (a) try to keep it a secret or (b) ring up the secret service and drop lots and lots of hints? If you answered (b), you'll probably find this an enthralling tale.
John Malkovich plays an assassin whose main interest is not, in fact, assassination, or preparing for assassination, but in talking to Frank of the secret service.
I suppose it makes for an interesting cat and mouse game between Malkovich and Clint Eastwood. But once you notice this film does not actually make any sense, at all, I don't think you can go back to un-noticing how ludicrous the plot of this film is, and suspending disbelief enough to enjoy watching.
And on top of that, the other part about Clint being wracked by guilt about the Kennedy assassination doesn't add up either. How on earth would Clint have been able to prevent Kennedy from being assassinated by jumping in front of a rifle bullet? The bullet would have hit Kennedy before the shot was even heard, and no human being is capable of acting that quickly. Inevitably, the absurd "great redemption" scene here is when Clint spreadeagles himself in midair in front of Malkovich's bullet as Malko fires at the pres, but even after that, the "Malko and Clint show" isn't over, as they go up-tiddly-up-up and go down-tiddly-um-down in an elevator for a bit before Malko can finally be silenced.
It's all just a teensy-weensy bit ridiculous if you think about it.
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