The 'Thriller' label applies across a variety of genres: sub groupings include the political thriller, detective thriller, horror thriller, suspense thriller. Examples include the works of John Buchan, Geoffery Household, Mickey Spillane, Len Deighton, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, Alistair Maclean, Dashiel Hammett, P. D. James and Frederick Forsythe. The classic exponent of cinema thrillers is, of course, Hitchcock.

General characteristics apply to the genre, including:

(i) the generation of affect through suspense, and a thrill and entertainment value which comes from unravelling the enigma and 'working out' why and how, the cognitive pleasures. In the "Pursuit Thriller" the emphasis is placed on the elements of suspense: will the agent be caught before he can solve or prevent forms of disorder? In the "Political Thriller" emphasis is placed on the process of solving or sense-making itself, unravelling the labyrinthine complexities of the world of real politics.

(ii) a setting which is based in the city and the urban or cosmopolitan world. One feature of the genre is that it often allows the reader/viewer to have privileged access or insight into "the World", and to institutions, practices and agencies which control or seek to control that world: the reader of viewer is taken "behind the scenes".

(iii) the reliance on rational and secular forms of explanation, often coupled with an emphasis on the "logic" of rational politics and realpolitik. Agents may become aware that the rules governing this world are irrational, unjust or immoral, and that these rules may be opposed to their personal views of the reasonable, the moral and the "civilised"

(iv) a preoccupation with questions of social order, legality, justice and criminality, and the means by which social order is upheld or imposed.

(v) the central hero or 'agent'. In focusing on the point of view of this agent the Thriller is able to raise issues of heroism, masculinity, honour, rationalism and competitive individualism. The position of this central agent in relation to the institutions or political orders which he serves is often used to express wider attitudes towards Social Order, the State or the "Country" (see (iii) above).

The Day of the Jackal

This belongs to a particular sub-group, the Political Thriller, which expresses or exposes neuroses about threats to, and the potential collapse of a social order. This order, in turn, may require potentially illegal means to uphold that order ("licensed to kill"!). Importance also of conspiracy within the plot, a perennial preoccupation of the Thriller.

(i) Structure and Characterisation. Note the importance of the anatomical dissection and the metaphor of the 'manhunt', with its associations of 'game' and 'trapping': the plot is essentially concerned with 'tracking' the 'other'. Characters are agents or functions within this plot, and much is made of the contrast between the two central protagonists, the Jackal and Lebel. The Jackal is professional, ruthless, young, psychopathic, rational, rakish, animal and instinctive, fair, and chameleon-like in his assumption of disguises. Lebel is also professional and methodical, but is dark, middle aged, true to himself, and is something of a plodder. Which of these two are we encouraged to identify with? The film raises the issue because of its use of point of view.

(ii) Themes and issues. In additional to the general themes of the genre, certain key issues are dealt with in the film:

- Social Order and its moral basis: at what moral cost can or should that order be upheld? Significance of the episode where Kowalski is tortured.

- Technocratic bureaucracy versus competitive individualism. It is bureaucracy which helps track down the Jackal, who is a highly competitive individual. Thrillers frequently feature a contrast between bureaucracy and individualism.

- The irrationalism of the highly rational - is the Jackal a psychopathic killer, or a thorough professional, an inhuman monster or an entrepreneur?

(iii) Values. To what extent is the film a 'masculine romance', in its glorification of the instrumentally rational and object-using world, where women are used as objects as much as guns are used, in the service of Law and Order?

The film also raises issues concerned with the nature of 'heroism' - chivalric, competitive, ruthless, professional?

Finally, the contrast of the democratic social order ('stuffy bureaucracy') with the use of power. Does the film advocate a Fascist anti-fascism?

Patriot Games

Many of the issues discussed above apply also to Patriot Games: the emphasis on Revenge, Honour, and the heroic (or psychopathic) pursuit of causes. The film's insight into advanced techniques of intelligence-gathering and surveillance also raises issues of individual liberty, and of the (justifiable?) means through which advanced societies preserve Law and Order. The emphasis also on the central hero's family life also foregrounds issues of masculine dedication to service of family, country and the moral order. Ryan's loyalty to his family comes first, and we see his personal values (as husband and father) in a different light to his service of country and justice. Note the importance of conspiracies in the film (the IRA as an underground movement, set against the secretive world of the CIA), of which the majority of the population are unaware. Finally, how does the film work in affective terms? Are the terrorists shown as being so ruthless that it is almost impossible to identify with them, or their cause? Or is the film more ambivalent in its working on the emotional sympathies of the audience?

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