ianlouisiana Review of The Assignment

The Assignment (1997)

Starts promisingly,but is unforgivably confusing.

[6/10 · 10 September 2008]

With an opening "hommaged" from "A Touch of Evil"I had high hopes of "The Assignment",but gradually they faded and I settled for "time passer".I lost track of when Aidan Quinn was playing a Naval Officer,a terrorist or a Naval Officer playing a terrorist.I couldn't see the point of the fairly graphic sex scenes - apart from the obvious one.We are told Quinn will have to learn how Carlos "makes love" to his mistresses - do we really need to see this being demonstrated at inordinate length? And why does it take so damn long to recruit him?We know he will take the job in the end for heaven's sake................... Having said that,there are some fun moments in this movie,mostly concerning uber ham Donald Sutherland alternately smiling,snarling and sneering at Quinn,sometimes within the same sentence.He isn't really trying but he still manages to dominate the movie. Ben Kingsley looks soulful,makes a few half - hearted Jewish quips just in case we forget he's in Mossad and takes a bullet for Quinn before dying with a half smile on his lips - a neat trick if you pull it off. None of the women have to do much apart from submitting to Mr Quinn in his various personae,which they do - it must be said - in different degrees of poor grace,the poor dears. For tackling a subject usually dealt with by blockbusters the producers are to be commended for refraining from budget - busting FX and concentrating more on character,it's just a pity the characters weren't a little bit more believable. In today's world awash with suicide bombers and electronic surveillance, old -style independent terrorists like Carlos are an endangered species,you knew where you were with his ilk - throw enough money at them and bob's your uncle.Now nobody seems to care whether they live or die the ball game has changed just a little bit.If I looked an awful lot like Osama bin Laden I might be afraid of being shot on sight but I don't think there'd be much point in Donald Sutherland trying to recruit me.