Remember all of the political “President is in danger and so are all the people around him” flicks of the 1990’s ala “Clear and Present Danger”, “Air Force One”, and “JFK”? This is one of them. “In the Line of Fire” is directed by Wolfgang Petersen who’s previous outings include “Outbreak”, “Enemy Mine”, and “Das Boot” and stars Clint Eastwood in the same role we’ve seen him in since the 70’s, the grizzled cop (or in this case secret service agent) who’s trying to track down an assassin hellbent on killing the President of the United States of America. Depth is added to his character by including a backstory on how he wasn’t able to save President Kennedy from an assassin’s bullet, so now he’s hellbent on making sure it doesn’t happen again.

“In the Line of Fire” does a good job of keeping up the suspense, but at the time was slightly more original than the brethren it spawned (the director also did the eponymous “Clear and Present Danger” mentioned before). The entire genre of “President in danger” flicks of the 90’s got tired real quick, and ushered in other movies that were more in the vein of “Our current President is a piece of crap” like “Wag the Dog” and other movies that poked fun of politicos such as “Bullworth”. While it’s hard to fault Eastwood for anything he’s ever done in his career. This movie is not one of his more memorable. However it does give us a quick tidbit of old-timer rhetoric that Clint uses (Cockamamie), and is given origin by our good friends at Crackle.Com here:

According to worldwidewords.org cockamamie is derived for the French décalcomanie, which they report, “…was created in the early 1860s to refer to the craze for decorating objects with transfers.” In other words everything from stencils to fake tattoos. Oh those wacky French! Will nothing boring and inane amuse them to manic proportions?

The word eventually went British, and from there it got picked up and thrown into ’30s New York City where kids were going nuts for the fake tattoos given away with candy and gum.Then the trail gets spotty, but basically the people in charge of language decided that anyone who thought that fake tattoos were cool, were also silly and childish.

For more info on this film and all the other Crackle Summer Drive-In films being shown in August, go Here!