I quite like Frederick Forsythe thrillers , they`re usually well written and also informative so I made a point of watching this which was very disappointing . The one thing I remember about it was that the actress playing the go getting journalist heroine was extremely attractive but lacked a certain everything in the role . Gawd she really was embarrassing and I couldn`t believe that anyone - No matter how sexy - as untalented as this could have got an equity card . The name of this unpromising star ? Elizabeth Hurley . Yes , that one .
With hindsight there is another flaw with DEATH HAS A BAD REPUTATION and thats its portrayal of Carlos the jackal . Throughout the 1970s and 80s Carlos was hyped as public enemy number one in the Western and Arab worlds , part playboy , part courageous revolutionary , but this was almost entirely an invention of the press . The truth was Carlos was fairly incompetent and that many of the acts of terrorism attributed to him were in fact carried out by other terrorist organizations while his supposed assassinations of PLO chiefs were carried out by Israeli Mossad agents . Here we see him as being employed by the Soviet and East German security services as their most respected hitman when in reality he was a failed terrorist living in Sudan fighting alcoholism at the time
Trivia point : Ironically it was a Frederick Forsythe novel that gave Carlos his famous nickname . After an attempted murder of a prominent Jewish businessman in London in 1973 a British journalist was searching through Carlos`s flat and came upon a copy of Forsythe`s novel DAY OF THE JACKAL and referred to him as " Carlos The Jackal " in his article and a legend - Though a mythical one - was born
