This smart; tautly directed thriller from Wolfgang Petersen is about the cat-and-mouse games between a Secret Service agent named Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) and the brilliant; psychopathic assassin (John Malkovich) who's itching to get the President in his cross hairs. The back-story--Horrigan is haunted by his inability to prevent John Kennedy's assassination (Eastwood is computer-generated into archival footage)--is more than a little hokey; but the plotting itself is smartly; even ingeniously; constructed. Petersen manages a viselike grip on the tension and Eastwood even gets to deliver an ever-more-timely lecture on the diminished nature of the office of President. Eastwood's as gruff and as infuriating to the by-the-book Powers That Be as ever; and Malkovich oozes delightful menace. Renee Russo capably costars as a colleague with whom Horrigan gets friendly. --David Kronke