Trama

Secret Service agent Frank Horrigan couldn't save Kennedy, but he's determined not to let a clever assassin take out this president.

Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) is a Secret Service Agent who keeps thinking back to November 22, 1963, when, as a hand-picked Agent by President John F. Kennedy, he became one of the few Agents to have lost a President to an assassin when Kennedy died. Now, former C.I.A. assassin Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) is stalking the current President (Jim Curley), who is running for re-election. Mitch has spent long hours studying Horrigan, and he taunts Horrigan, telling him of his plans to kill the President. Leary plans to kill the President because Leary feels betrayed by the government. Leary was removed from the C.I.A., and the C.I.A. is now trying to have him killed. After talking to Leary, Horrigan makes sure he is assigned to Presidential protection duty, working with fellow Secret Service Agent Lilly Raines (Rene Russo). Horrigan has no intention of failing his President this time around, and he's more than willing to take a bullet. White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent (Fred Dalton Thompson) refuses to alter the President's itinerary, while Horrigan's boss, Secret Service Director Sam Campagna (John Mahoney), is supportive of Horrigan. As the election gets closer, Horrigan begins to doubt his own abilities, especially when Horrigan's colleague Al D'Andrea (Dylan McDermott) is killed by Leary. But Horrigan may be the only one who can stop Leary.—Todd Baldridge

Veteran Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) is a man haunted by his failure to save President John F. Kennedy while serving protection detail in Dallas, Texas. Thirty years later, a man calling himself "Booth" (John Malkovich) threatens the life of the current President (Jim Curley), forcing Horrigan to come back to protection detail to confront the ghosts from his past.—Scott Renshaw <as.idc@forsythe.stanford.edu>

Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) is a fairly successful Agent working for the President, yet the guilt of not being able to save President John F. Kennedy back in 1963 still haunts him. When a lunatic assassin named "Booth", a.k.a. Mitch Leary (John Malkovich), begins to haunt and torment Frank with phone calls about his failure to save Kennedy and the threats to assassinate the President (Jim Curley), Frank must take action and protect the President at all costs, even if it causes him humiliation. Does Frank have what it takes to take a bullet?—commanderblue

Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) is a Secret Service Agent. He currently does mostly undercover work. He goes to check on a report about a person who is threatening the life of the President (Jim Curley). When he goes to the man's apartment, he finds clippings and photos of various assassinations throughout history. When he does a background check, he discovers that the man's identity is false. So he goes back to the apartment to get him, but when he goes in there, he finds the apartment cleaned out except for a photo of him when he was in Dallas, Texas, November 1963, protecting John F. Kennedy. Later, he gets a phone call from the man and tells him that he plans to kill the President and is daring Frank to stop him. When Frank reports to his superiors, he finds that there are some people like the Agent in Charge of protecting the President and Chief of Staff Harry Sargent (Fred Dalton Thompson), who think that Frank is letting his failure to protect Kennedy cloud his judgement. But as Frank chases him down, he discovers that he is not dealing with a nut, but with a well organized individual.—rcs0411@yahoo.com

Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) and Al D'Andrea (Dylan Mcdermott) meet with members of a counterfeiting group at a marina. The group's leader, Mendoza (Tobin Bell), tells Horrigan that he has identified D'Andrea as a United States Secret Service agent, and forces him to prove his loyalty by putting a gun to D'Andrea's head and pulling the trigger. When the gun just clicks, Horrigan then shoots and kills Mendoza's men, identifies himself as a United States Secret Service agent, and arrests Mendoza. Horrigan later tells D'Andrea that he wasn't completely sure that the chamber was empty and there was always the possibility that it held a bullet.

Horrigan investigates a complaint about an apartment's absent tenant. He finds a collage of photographs and newspaper articles on famous assassinations, a magazine for model-building enthusiasts, and a Time cover with the President's head, on which a gun-sight-cross-hairs has been drawn in red marker. Unknown to Horrigan, he is being observed through the windows while he was inside the apartment. The name of the name on the lease agreement turns out to be dead over 30 years ago.

When Horrigan and his partner return with a search warrant only one photograph remains, which shows a much younger Horrigan standing behind John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963 in a modified version of Ike Altgens' picture. Horrigan is the only remaining active agent who was guarding the President that day and is wracked with guilt over his failure to react quickly enough to the first shot or to shield Kennedy from the subsequent fatal bullet. Horrigan was the closest agent to Kennedy when the shots were fired, but he froze when the moment came. The guilt drove Horrigan to drink excessively, and eventually his family left him.

When Horrigan is at home, he receives a phone call from the tenant, who calls himself "Booth". He tells Horrigan that like John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald he plans to kill the President (Jim Curley), who is running for reelection and is making many public appearances around the country. Horrigan asks to return to the Presidential Protective Detail despite his age, where he begins a relationship with fellow agent Lilly Raines (Rene Russo).

Secret service team includes Secret Service Director Sam Campagna (John Mahoney), Agent Matt Wilder (Gregory Alan Williams), Agent Cozart (Cylk Cozart), Agent Jack Okura (Clyde Kusatsu), Agent Tony Carducci (Steve Hytner) and Agent Chavez (Joshua Malina). Head of Security Detail Bill Watts admonishes Horrigan for not investigating the apartment more thoroughly when he first got it. Horrigan retorts that he did not have a warrant.

On his first detail, Watts makes Horrigan run alongside the Presidential motorcade, which is a stretch for him as he is not used to this level of physical activity.

Booth continues to call Horrigan as part of his "game", even though he is well-aware that his calls are tapped and traced. He mocks the agent's failure to protect Kennedy but calls him a "friend". Booth was using call scramblers which gave a wrong location to the secret service, even if they managed to trace the call.

Meanwhile, the President continues with his campaign appearances and attends fund raising dinners, despite objections from Horrigan to the White House Chief of Staff. Booth escapes Horrigan and D'Andrea after one such call from Lafayette Park (which is traced correctly by the secret service) but leaves fingerprints. Lafayette Park was right across the street from the secret service office and Horrigan reaches there quickly. He finds one man observing the public phone in the middle of the park and gives chase, but the man (Booth) escapes while leaving his prints on a hood of car that he jumps over. The FBI matches the print, but the identity is classified so the bureau cannot disclose it to the Secret Service; but it does notify the CIA.

At a campaign event in Chicago Booth pops a decorative balloon which Horrigan, who has the flu, mistakes for a gunshot and ends up over-reacting. Because of the error, he is removed from the protective detail by White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent and head of security detail Bill Watts (Gary Cole), but retains the Booth case.

Horrigan and D'Andrea learn from the CIA that Booth is Mitch Leary (John Malkovich), a former operative (a "wet boy") who has suffered a mental breakdown and is now a "predator" seeking revenge on his former masters. Leary, who has already killed several people as he prepares for the assassination, uses his model-making skills to mold a zip gun out of composite material to evade metal detectors.

D'Andrea confides to Horrigan that he is going to retire immediately because of nightmares about the Mendoza incident, but Horrigan is able to dissuade him. After Leary taunts Horrigan about the President facing danger in California, Horrigan and D' Andrea chase him across Washington rooftops, where Leary shoots and kills D'Andrea but saves Horrigan from falling to his death as he clings to the side of the building. Horrigan asks Raines to reassign him to the protective detail as the President visits Los Angeles, but a television crew films him mistaking a bellboy at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel for a security threat, and he must again leave the detail.

Horrigan connects Leary to a bank employee's murder and learns that Leary, who has made a large campaign contribution, is among the guests of a campaign dinner at the hotel. He sees the President approach the assassin and jumps in front of his bullet. As the Secret Service quickly removes the President, Leary uses Horrigan-who is wearing a bulletproof vest-as a hostage to escape to the hotel's external elevator. The agent uses his earpiece to tell Raines and sharpshooters where to aim; although they miss Leary, Horrigan defeats him. The assassin chooses to fall to his death from the elevator.

Horrigan, now a hero, retires as his fame no longer lets him do his job. He and Raines find a farewell message from Leary on Horrigan's answering machine. Horrigan and Raines leave the house and visit the Lincoln Memorial.