Remember when Walter
Hill fucked up The Warriors with that terrible director’s cut that was filled
with unnecessary comic book panels and crummy looking pop art? Well, sad to say, he uses that same style
with The Assignment. If I told you the
plot, I’d be spoiling the film’s best aspect:
The anything-goes nuttiness that makes it almost worth watching. (Imagine if Robert Rodriguez had directed The
Skin I Live In and that might give you an idea of what to expect.) However, Hill’s use of lame comic book panels
is just way too on-the-nose. It’s like he
doesn’t want us to take it seriously.
Well, why not? Why wouldn’t we take it seriously? Why make a balls-out crazy movie like this if
you want it to be merely dispensable entertainment? Can’t it be a wild, tasteless action flick
AND a well-crafted motion picture? Why
purposefully dumb it down like that? Maybe
if Hill concentrated on developing his characters a bit more and less about the
schlocky comic book style, it could’ve been a winner.
The film is divided
into two distinct parts. There are the
scenes of the quack surgeon (Sigourney Weaver) being interviewed in a nut house
by a doctor played by Tony Shalhoub. The
other half of the movie is devoted to a hitwoman (Michelle Rodriguez) on a
quest for revenge. While both sections
have their charms, neither is wholly successful. It never quite meshes in the end, but the performances
(especially by Weaver and Shalhoub) keep it grounded even while the whole thing
threatens to veer off the tracks at any given moment.
Still, warts and all,
it all feels very much like a Walter Hill movie, which is a good thing. It is very much like a spiritual successor to
Johnny Handsome, one of Hill’s more underrated works. Both feature characters that go under
surgical procedures and have to readjust to their new lives, often while mired
in violence. Johnny Handsome is clearly
the better film, but the sheer audacity of The Assignment’s plot alone makes it
worth a look.
AKA: (Re) Assignment. AKA: Tomboy. AKA: Revenger.
I actually preferred this film over Johnny Handsome, which I felt had some serious pacing problems and it's third act was a bit clumsily handled.
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