The movie follows the story of Secret Service agent Frank Horigen, who has a huge problem rescuing Kennedy, as he is determined not to let a smart killer turn things around completely.
What separates In The Line Of Fire from the rest of the bog-standard good-guy/bad-guy set-up is the clear implication throughout that these two sworn enemies have more in common than they may think.
Between them, director Petersen and screenwriter Jeff Maguire do a memorable job developing their characters in this story of personal and professional redemption.
It just builds, relationship by relationship, detail by detail, clever stroke by clever stroke, taking you in and making you its own. It ought to wear a sign: Danger. Professionals At Work.
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.
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.
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.
