Genres

Visitors Review

Epiphany 2012-05-16 23:23:04

"You've Not Seen Nothing Like the MIGHTY QUINN!"

Okay so I love Aidan Quinn's acting even with a bad script.This is not the case in The Assignment. As other viewers have said, thiswasa movie I stumbled upon on cable and got so intoit I didn't want it to end. Take one Cuban American Navy Ofc.(Quinn)who isan upright, uptight soldier and family man.Add a crazed agent(Donald Sutherland) who is looking for the worlds mostnotorious terrorist and add a Ben Kingsley and you have "TheAssignment".Sutherland is a witness of the most notorious terrorist Carlos actions inacafe on a lovely day where he is so profoundly rocked at this mans evilthathis sole reason to live is to get this man as long as he draws breath.Take one soldier on a pass in Israel who is a dead ringer for this man andis beaten and held by Kingsley until they realize they have aplan.By taking on Carlos by being him, or being forever responsible for neverhelping rid the world of him, makes for a very heavy assignment and guilttrip. By not helping his country he is bound as a man and his militarydutyto chose wisely.So the training begins. Lets say Carlos training is right up there withtheacademy of arts and holocausts.When I say this intense and wonderfully casted,scripted and executed filmrates the best, I am not understating it. All three actors could savealmostany script..together this is a movie to be seen from frame one to credits.Iam not into terrorism or movies about it but I got hooked!Bravo again to Aidan Quinn who for once plays a heavy that could hold uptoany actor including Gary Oldman. Thats a compliment. Rent it and get lotsofpopcorn. Oh did I mention the sex?? It works better than "Last Tango!"andits educational.

2012-05-16 12:57:33

Canadian Thriller

A some what decent cold war spy thriller from Canada, loosely based on real life characters. A U.S. Naval officer turned CIA spy to catch the infamous "Carlos the Jackal". Ben Kingly and Donald Sutherland are the veteran actors in this film. Aidan Quinn, although not Cuban, dose make it come off fairly well. (I'm ½ Cuban, I should know.)Decent action and well shot and edited. I would have liked to see maybe a little more spy gadgetry but then that's Bonds territory. Over all this was a good movie with all around solid performances by the cast.

Jason Martin 2012-05-15 14:02:56

Move over James Bond!

I consider this movie to be the best spy thriller to date. An incrediblestory line with great characters. If you thought the Jackal was good withBruce Willis then you must see this movie. This movie is probably one ofthe greatest sleepers yet.

River4Rain 2012-05-14 22:28:32

great thriller with action, plot, characters and suspense

This is probably one of the best thrillers I have ever seen. It hasaction,but not this bullet-flying, good guys - bad guys, van damme - stalloneaction, but quick, realistic and nervous action, it has a plot, causetillthe very end of the movie you don't know how this is gonna end, it hascharacters, aidan quinn, donald sutherland and ben kingsley are justperfect, and it has suspense, this movie just won't let you go awaybeforeyou've seen the end of it.Though there are only a few characters, I didn't find it difficult tokeepmy attention the the story, and as for the story, it's basic (not too tomclancy-difficult, but simple and raw) and realistic.If you're in for a movie with a good story, some action and great acting,watch this and I promise, you won't go away till you've seen the end ofit.The very end of it.

2012-05-10 12:17:41

A film that shows that Canada can make a great movie!

As a fellow Canadaian, I was very pleased to discover this film. Which was not only was stylish and suspenseful, but also a very interesting character study of the main character, Annibal Ramirez, played by Aidan Quinn. It's very interesting to see Ramirez being transformed into this cold-blooded killer known as the Jackal. I was surprised at how effective Christopher Duguay's direction was especially considering his last movie was the awful "Screamers". This picture has given Quinn his most challenging role to date, and one of the best roles that both Sutherland and Kingsley - who is great in this. - have had in years.

Bobzilla85 2012-05-10 04:38:03

Excellent flick, worth your time!!! 9/10

This is the classic case of an excellent film being looked over by theAmerican public simply due to the fact it didn't have Bruce Willis or ArnoldSchwarzenneger as the lead man - Adrian Quinn does a better dualperformance, thats right you heard it dual performance in this film thaneither of those have ever pulled off in their careers! Well anyway, now tothe review... The Assignment is loosely based upon the story of Carlos the Jackal, a1970's radical who terrorized Europe for years before finally beingapprehended by French agents. In this adaptation, a US Naval officer(Adrian Quinn) is on leave in Israel when he is apprehended by Mossad(Isreal's crack intelligence / counter-terrorism agency) and took in forquestioning due to the fact he looks EXACTLY like the jackal (this is theone extremely cheesey part of the film, but trust me it doesn't detract fromthe great value of this film). When it is discovered Mr. Ramirez is not theJackal, however, he is recruited by a hardened CIA agent by the name of JackShaw (Donald Sutherland, who does his usual grizzled mysterious governmentauthority figure routine but in a stupendous manner) who has spent his lifehunting the Jackal, and the series of events which follow will captivateanyone who watches this film - it is chock full of great acting, without allthe usual action film cliches and one-liners, and a great plot which willsurprise anyone. The three leading men - Quinn, Sutherland and Kingsley -carry this film much further than its modest budget would have allowed withanyone else filling their shoes. Also kudos to the director and his staff,the camera angles and cinematography are top notch, especially in the actionscenes. The Assignment is better than anyone renting it could ever expect,its a pity the film did fairly poorly in the box office, otherwise we mightsee a sequel to this stupendous espionage thriller. 9/10 stars, this reviewer HIGHLY recommends it to all potentialviewers!

2012-05-06 21:00:10

spider

it mixes hollywood style the facts of the cia full of intrigue and action,gun play, explosions. this is a must see for action fans.

2012-05-06 13:40:34

Made me love Aidan Quinn

Really, after watching this movie I have to say that I fell in love w/ Aidan Quinn. I have had the opportunity to go to Haifa and I can't express the feeling... It's a beautiful movie. I always hated terroristic movies, but this one is special. Aidan is fabulous both in the part of the smart soldeir and the part of Carlos, the terrorist.The twist at the end is simply genius. And I just love the fact that after all, Carlos still lives. Is there going to be a next assignment???

concerning 2012-05-05 11:06:49

the opening shot

Who decided to have two kids URINATING ON THE TITLE OF THE FILM? WHY!?I genuinely don't understand why they did that. That first ridiculousoversight paved the way for the poorest film i've ever seen. Everyperformance was sub average, many of the scenes were unbelievable andcorny, the action was totally cheesy, the storyline was flimsy andhilarious and the script made me want to cry several times. I'm in awethat so many people actually liked this film, and it sickens me tothink that there is an audience stupid enough to fall for this tripe. Ihated the main character. Oh, and two unknown kids URINATE ON THE TITLEOF THE FILM. Classic.

2012-05-05 07:46:18

A Great Unknown Film

I don't see how this wasn't a hit film. Three big name actors take roles that are new but suit them well.I was on the edge of my seat most of the time. Perhaps the ending was unspectacular, but that shouldn't be allowed to spoil a great film concept with a riveting storyline.

Robert J. Maxwell 2012-05-02 20:59:14

Holds the Attention

SPOILERS.Aidan Quinn is an upright naval officer recruited by CIA man DonaldSutherland and ex-Mossad agent Ben Kingsley to pose as Carlos (the Jackal)because, after all, Quinn is an exact duplicate of Carlos. The general ideais to train Quinn the naval officer to think and act like Carlos the jackal. Then, pretending to be Carlos, Quinn will be seen by observers talking tothe CIA. The KGB, who have been associated with Carlos, cannot allow suchgoings on and will assassinate the real Carlos to prevent him from revealingKGB secrets. Simple enough. Also, as plausible as some cheap mechanicaldevice advertised on TV as giving you "iron-hard abs" in no time atall.Of course, things don't go as planned. If they did, this would be a routinespy thriller and you could shoehorn Sylvester Stallone or Steven Seagal intothe Quinn part. A reluctant and doubtful Quinn is trained in Montreal. Taken to Israel and given further training, including a lesson in how Carlosmakes love to the women he uses. Then he arranges to meet his Carlos' girlin Beirut, this time actually playing Carlos for keeps. But the girl,thinking he is the real Carlos, has sold him out to the French and they tryto knock him off. They fail, and in the process, they lose four of theirmen to Quinn. Quinn shoots one of them in the forehead to save himself andit doesn't make him feel particularly good to have this guy's brainssplattered on his face because, after all, the French are trying to killCarlos, which is what we are trying to fake the KGB into doing anyway. Andthe French are our allies -- or they were until recently, when we startedpouring their wine into our gutters. In a public place, poor Quinn is taken for the real Carlos by one of Carlos'henchmen -- but Quinn doesn't know the password. He doesn't even know thereIS a password. He is saved from assassination by Carlos' forces by BenKingsley, at the expense of Kingsley's life.Then it gets a little more interesting. The operation is called off by theCIA and a grateful Quinn returns home to his loving wife and little kiddy. But he's changed. Now he makes rough love to his wife and explodes withanger at unexpected moments -- just as Carlos would have done. Sutherland visits him to tell him the caper is back on but Quinn isunwilling to go back to being Carlos, what with all those nasty habits. Sutherland tells him: "Listen, I don't have a family. I don't have anyfriends. The only people I've ever really cared about were the people Ikilled -- and you. I CREATED you." Quinn: "You didn't create me. Youinfected me with your poison." So, to bring Quinn back in, Sutherlandthreatens to have it booted about that Quinn is Carlos' double and someone,somewhere, somehow, sometime, will eliminate Quinn and the rest of hisfamily. (This is known as "dirty pool.")In the end, the plot works -- more or less. Quinn and his family wind upsafe and suntanned, but I won't get into the somewhat convoluted ending. Genre conventions aside -- oh, by "genre conventions" I refer to shootouts,falling bodies in slow motion, cars tumbling end over end, somebody fallingonto a power line and disappearing in a fireworks display -- that sort ofthing. Two people are going at it mano a mano and one of them bangs hisforehead against his opponent's forehead, disabling the opponent andignoring one of Newton's laws of motion. But genre conventions aside, themovie deals with an interesting problem. Well all occupy different roles atdifferent times, don't we? We may be a spouse, a parent, an employee, anemployer, a checker player, a stamp collector, a taxpayer, a member of thejunior chamber of commerce, although I hope not, and so forth -- but not allat the same time. We occupy these roles one at a time, depending oncircumstances. The anthropologist Ralph Linton distinguished between"active status", the one we occupy at the moment, and "latent statuses,"those others we are capable of playing but for the moment have stashed awayfor use at some other time. During his respite, Quinn is having problemsfirming up his active status as the nice-guy naval officer, and suppressinghis latent status as Carlos the sadistic maniac. This causes him and thosearound him considerable distress on the Little League Ballfield. We allhave problems activating the proper role at some time or other, but theproblems seldom reach the magnitude of Quinn's.The acting is pretty good. I've always kind of like Quinn. He's not abravura performer but he looks okay -- handsome, but not too handsome, ifyou know what I mean. His wife does well in a relatively small part, too,as well as anyone else in the flick. Ben Kingsley is great as an Israeliagent, waving his arms and speaking in Hebrew-tinted aphorisms. DonaldSutherland as CIA agent Jack Shaw should have been named Jack Epictetus. Every time something goes wrong, he shrugs it off in the most stoic ofmanners. "Well, the guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time," orwhatever. He gives the juiciest performance too, a not-entirely morallyupright kind of guy, though nominally on the right side. He's positivelygleeful when our French allies attack Quinn and get murdered instead. Nothing is more likely to convince the KGB that our phony is for real than afailed attack by the French that leaves bodies behind. The score is unremarkable. The production makes excellent use of locationshooting. What passes for Beirut looks as if it ought to be Beirut. Theweakest part of the movie is its script. The writers don't show much in theway of imagination. The dialogue has its good moments ("The only people Iever really cared about were the people I killed"), but is more often trite("You didn't create me. You infected me with your poison"). The movie isabove average for the genre, but it could have been better than that if thescript had been spruced up. There are too many lines like, "I don't knowwho you are anymore." Ho hum. But its weaknesses shouldn't be enough to keep one from watching this filmwhich, after its expository opening, has the tension of a coiled spring.

LJStephens1980 2012-05-02 00:24:10

An absorbing and intriguing thriller

When I first heard about this back in 1997, over coffee with friends, Idecided to check it out. The only problem was that it was on a small screenat one of my local cinema's.That didn't stop the enjoyment of seeing a simply great movie, with a topnotch cast in Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, and Ben Kingsley. The wholemovie, kept me glued to my seat. I simply found no flaws in this great movie, I give it my highestrecommendation to those who love thrillers. I am very proud to have this inmy collection.10/10 ( I don't hand this out lightly).

2012-04-30 09:15:04

Exciting action flick.

This review is from: Assignment [VHS] (VHS Tape) This is an exciting action flick about how the CIA, through the use of a look-alike, supposedly ended the career of the famous terrorist/assasin named Carlos. Aidan Quinn is excellent both as Carlos and as the naval officer who is Carlos' reluctant double. Ben Kingsley and Donald Sutherland are also quite effective as the Israeli and American Intelligence officers running the operation. There are some great scenes of teaching the naval officer how to "be" Carlos, and a terrific chase sequence. I really enjoyed this movie. END

Simion Ork 2012-04-29 16:15:26

GREAT CAMERA WORK AND DIRECTION!!!

I am so thankful they didn't use that "shaky camera" technique. Great camera work and great direction on this movie. I loved it! Donald Sutherland was fantastic in this movie - Oscar worthy for sure. It does start off a little slow put picks up after that. It will keep you in suspense and on your toes. Must see movie!!!!!

buiger 2012-04-29 00:12:08

A rather good action thriller, but...

A rather good action thriller, but I would have preferred if it was alittle more realistic. They tried in some places to go for it, but notall the way (probably for commercial reasons). It's a pity really,since this is a well made movie, but one that had the potential to bemuch more. If they had made it more realistic, and by that I mean withless James Bond-like shoot-outs, less beautiful women, less funnycommunists, etc... this motion picture could have been excellent. Theyjust had to use more of the truth and they would have made somethingmuch better. The screenplay does cunningly use small parts of the truthin constructing the fiction that this film really is, but this is notnearly enough. I do not believe that they should have made adocumentary, but a little less 'artistic creativity' would haveactually been 'more' in this case.In other, the camera and sound are also not exceptional which furtherdetracts from the viewing pleasure. All in all, an above average movie,but nothing more.

Lawson 2012-04-28 17:13:34

Solid action movie with interesting premise.

This movie is about Carlos "The Jackal" (Quinn), an international terroristwho, by CIA agent Henry Fields's (Sutherland) description, appears to maimwomen and children for the heck of it. At least that's what he says to guiltUS Naval Officer Annibal Ramirez (Quinn again) into taking on the assignmentof posing as Carlos and setting him up as a traitor in the eyes of the KGB.Ramirez is apparently physically identical to Carlos but mentally he is hisantithesis. He is borne of order and Carlos is borne ofchaos.The movie isn't all shoot-gun-jump-around action, and that's a good thing.In its first half, Ramirez undergoes training to act and think like Carlos,and that's actually where the movie achieves its distinction from otherrun-of-the-mill action flicks. An Israeli agent (Kingsley), joins Fields intraining Ramirez, and together they appear to take on the roles of parentsin the birthing of Ramirez's new character. Ramirez is taught to dislike thethings Carlos dislikes, to act on the split second like Carlos would, andeven to make love like Carlos (courtesy of an ex-girlfriend of Carlos's).Naturally all that he is taught would be put to good use in the later halfof the movie. It's a little contrived but Quinn gives a riveting performanceas a Carlos-wannabe.Another thing I liked about this movie was that it didn't utilize the muchoverdone plot point in evil twin movies - you know, the one in which theevil twin insinuates himself into the good twin's family. Ramirez's familydoes come into the picture, but instead they highlight how his new characterwrecks havoc on his family life.Good chuckle humor is injected into this movie, often coming the acerbic duoof Sutherland and Kingsley. An exception is the overused and apparentlygratuitous joke involving Ramirez's first name (Annibal, Annabelle, getit?). Also overdone was the constant harping by the duo about how powerfuland cunning and intelligent Carlos is. In my opinion, during the finalshowdown, the payoff wasn't able to match the build-up.On the whole, the movie was enjoyable. I'm not a big action flick fan butthis movie was more intelligent and engrossing than the average action movieand it maintained my attention throughout.My rating:9/10

Renaldo Matlin 2012-04-27 17:34:39

Extremely underrated, first-rate action/thriller!

This movie really proves that the world is all too often an unfair place,especially the world of motion pictures. "The Assignment" received barelyany attention upon it's release and not surprisingly flopped at thebox-office, but when history will be written this movie will most surelyreceive some long lost praise.Thank God I'm surrounded by friends who knows what's good for me. Being amovie buff like myself a pal highly recommended "The Assignment", a movie Ihadn't even heard about. I decided to check out what Leonard Maltin gave it,and not surprisingly he gave it **1/2. Knowing that this is the same gradehe gave classics like "Alien", "The Usual Suspects" and "The Matrix" (I kidyou not) I knew his meaning didn't mean diddly squat jack s***. So withouthesitating I went out and bought it on DVD. This was about 3 years ago andthe movie is still one of my proudest belongings in my DVD collection,despite a cover design that echoes a low budget stinker with Casper VanDien."The Assignment" is expertly directed, delivering some really intensemoments that will hold you on the edge of your seat throughout the movie, ontop of that it boasts an at times brilliant story that you know will beriddled with unexpected twists and turns. It stars Aidan Quinn in one of hisbest performances, and serves him with great support by Donald Sutherlandand Ben Kingsley who are both in great form.Something like 40 out of 42 user comments like this movie, most of themcan't seem to praise it enough. So what are you waiting for? If you callyourself a fan of action-thrillers you should have bought it, rented it,seen it YESTERDAY!

2012-04-27 06:45:21

5 Stars is not enough

Definately an unconventional thriller. Duguay's slow but heated pacing throughout the movie was well appreciated. This allowed us never to expect when someone would die, or get blown up. Quinn's portrayal of Carlos' hatred was dead-on. His unpredictability and seething brashness was surely a reflection on the real Carlos (who by the way killed French cops in the '70s as Quinn did the KGB in this movie-by distraction).

2012-04-25 06:38:17

WHO'S WHO ?

That's the kind of movie I like. Great actors, action, suspense and some food for the mind.The director, Christian DUGUAY, made this "B" sci-fi movie SCREAMERS which was already terrific. Here, in THE ASSIGNMENT, he mixes real facts, the terrorist actions of Carlos, and a complex plot of the C.I.A. in order to eliminate him. And the mixture works !And there is the final scene in a lake which deserves to stay in movie history.A DVD to discover. You won't regret it.

2012-04-24 23:48:25

Intelligent thriller

A US Naval officer (Aidan Quinn) with a striking resemblance to an international terrorist (Quinn again) is recruited to impersonate him in a complex plot to discredit him before his KGB superiors. This is a very interesting film that has more to offer than just action. Some of the most fascinating sequences come early in the film as CIA agent Jack Fields (Donald Sutherland) and Mossad agent Amos (Ben Kingsley) supervise the training that is supposed to enable him to behave convincingly in his new role--training that really seems more like brain-washing. This is clearly not a big-budget film, but it makes the best of what it has. It is not predictable by any means--the final shot will leave you guessing./