Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Assassins Blu-ray Movie Review

Killing Them Softly

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 13, 2011

The Wachowski Brothers so disliked the film that producer Joel Silver and producer-director Richard Donner made from their script for Assassins that they wanted their names removed from the credits. The Writers Guild said no, which means that Andy and Larry (excuse me, "Lana") remain featured in the film's titles along with Brian Helgeland, who was hired by Silver and Donner to streamline the script into their kind of picture. Silver eventually made it up to the Wachowskis by producing The Matrix, and they got their revenge when Assassins fizzled at the box office -- even abroad where its star, Sylvester Stallone, is usually a reliable draw.

The Wachowski touch can still be discerned in the finished film, especially in certain thematic elements, such as characters who are doppelgängers and action that plays out in a separate world paralleling our own though largely unseen. But Silver and Donner were only interested in such elements as plot devices for a thriller, not as constructs for a philosophical discourse. (Depending on how you feel about the Wachowski oeuvre, that may be a good thing.) Donner was at the top of his game then, and if you can accept the admittedly eccentric casting, Assassins is a diverting and well-crafted entertainment.

"What kind of shoes will you be wearing when your day comes?" asks a bitter Ketcham (Muse Watson), the latest victim of hitman Robert Rath (Stallone). It's the kind of question that's been on Rath's mind lately. Something of a celebrity within the obscure fraternity of killers for hire, Rath has lately grown weary of his profession. His doubts are only amplified by fulfilling the contract on Ketcham, who is a fellow professional. This contract brings up bad memories.

Fifteen years ago, Rath accepted the toughest contract of his career, when he "retired" his best friend and former partner, Nicolai Tashlinkov (played in black-and-white flashbacks by familiar Russian actor Anatoli Davydov). Rath is haunted by the memory, in no small part because he has "principles" -- a point that Ketcham bitterly throws in Rath's face in his final moments. These principles are never spelled out in detail, but it appears that Rath won't kill "innocent" people. His "marks" have to be criminals of some sort, people like Ketcham and Nicolai -- and Rath.

Rath's concerns multiply when his next target, a reclusive billionaire venturing out for his brother's funeral (Donner regular Steve Kahan), is stolen out from under him by a flamboyant new competitor, Miguel Bain (Antonio Banderas). An ambitious young turk who has studied Rath's methods, Miguel appears unsuited for a job that requires discretion, because he enjoys his work too much. Not only does he steal Rath's mark, but he also kills four cops and puts the whole city on alert. By the time he and Rath finally meet up, their first priority is to avoid getting caught.

Rath is ready to retire right then, but his contractor, an anonymous source he knows only as an account on the internet, tempts him with an especially lucrative job: an information thief in Seattle selling valuable data to European buyers. For terminating the thief and the buyers, plus recovering the disk with the information, Rath will be paid $2 million.

Rath takes the contract, but it quickly turns out to be suspicious. The buyers aren't who they're supposed to be, and neither is the seller, a hacker who calls herself Electra (Julianne Moore) and, like Rath, has lived in the shadows for years. (She turns out to be a middleman who doesn't even know what she's selling.) More importantly, Miguel Bain reappears, which can't be a coincidence. Instead of "retiring" Electra, Rath offers an alliance, which Electra takes because she doesn't exactly have a choice. The result is an elaborate game of cat and mouse across Seattle with violent, sometimes explosive, results.

Looking to gain a tactical advantage, Rath devises a way to redirect the conflict to the unnamed Carribean island where he and Nikolai had their final encounter. As he tells Electra, Miguel loves history. He'll jump at the chance to replay the Rath/Nikolai encounter, with himself in the role that Rath once occupied. But Rath, who was there the first time, knows more about the story than Miguel ever could, and he can use that knowledge to change the outcome. It's a good plan -- in theory.



For about the first half, Assassins plays like an action film, complete with elaborate car chases, gunplay and a truly spectacular explosion. Director Donner, who had made three Lethal Weapon films by that point, is a master of such sequences, and he always did them for real and in camera, with a minimum of effects trickery. By the second half, the film has switched gears to become a kind of espionage thriller, with deception, maneuvering and double-dealing all around. (It's not for nothing that both Rath and Miguel are devoted chess players.)

In the build-up to the film's finale, Rath sits patiently in air-conditioned comfort at the local branch of the Banco Internacional, where he's awaiting a huge payoff, while Miguel swelters across the street perched high atop a derelict hotel. Rath knows Miguel is there, because it's where Rath sat when he shot Nikolai fifteen years ago as the Russian exited the very same bank. Rath has a plan, but it depends on his outlasting Miguel, which he's sure he can do. The sequence alternating between the two hired killers could easily be dull, but it's shot and edited so well that it's anything but.

Films that mix genres need strong characters to hold the plot together, and the challenge of Assassins is that all three leads are playing against the types for which they were known or for which they would shortly become familiar. Robert Rath may be a professional killer, but he isn't one of Stallone's typical men of action. He's reserved, rarely speaks above a murmur and hits only one person (and then only once) in the entire film. It's a largely interior performance by an actor who isn't noted for his skill at showing emotions through subtle changes of expression. But Stallone pulls it off anyway. In this performance more than any other, he exploits the power of stillness which, when used properly, is one of the most powerful tools of a film actor's craft. For Rath, the weary professional trying to figure his way out of a situation spiraling further and further beyond his control, watchful stillness is an intensely expressive state.

Stillness certainly helps to balance Banderas' quirky personification of Miguel Bain. The Spanish heartthrob and future Zorro, who would appear the same year in Desperado as a man seeking revenge for the death of his beloved, makes Miguel a psychotic puppy dog, all tics, twitches and perpetual motion. As intently as Miguel desires to supplant Rath as "number one" among hit men, it's hard to imagine him lasting long enough to achieve his goal, because he cannot maintain a low profile. Everything he does attracts attention. Still, being brazen can take you a long way, and Miguel is a dangerous adversary -- especially after his contractor (who also may be Rath's contractor) sends him a contract on Rath. Miguel can barely contain himself when he receives it.

Julianne Moore hadn't yet done the major roles that would establish her as a champion emoter (with the exception of Short Cuts), but she was already displaying the emotional transparency that would win her acclaim (and Oscar nominations) in films like Boogie Nights, The End of the Affair, The Hours and Far from Heaven. For Electra, she has to work against her natural gifts as an actress, because Electra has deliberately withdrawn from human relationships. "I need to be alone", she tells Rath, after they've been together a few hours. "I haven't spent this much time with somebody in years." ("Neither have I", say Rath, after she leaves.) Her only friend is her cat, Pearl, a friendly long-hair, and it irks her no end that the faithless feline takes an instant liking to Rath. Because the script tells us nothing about Electra's background, Moore has to convey the sense that Electra has a history without being able to say what it is. She does it by the way Electra studies Rath, evaluating what to make of him and whether she can trust him. Moore understands the character well enough not to put any romantic element into Electra's treatment of Rath (although a quick shot in the trailer suggests that the director might have tried it and wisely abandoned it). Their relationship is based on money, as all good business partnerships should be.

If you know the Lethal Weapon films, the ending of Assassins should feel familiar. All I'll say about it is that the song playing over the closing titles is a version of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". I'll bet the Wachowskis really hated that.

Assassins Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The great Vilmos Zsigmond shot Assassins, and although Zsigmond is best know for his work on anamorphic widescreen features like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he does equally memorable work with spherical lenses, and Assassins is a good example. Whether lighting the delicate chiaroscuro of Robert Rath's apartment, or the sunny heat of the Caribbean daytime, or the cityscapes of Seattle and Portland in rain and sun, Zsigmond gave Assassins a rich textured look and a frame that's always interesting.

The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from Warner provides a finely detailed image with exceptional clarity, solid black levels and the right levels of color saturation to differentiate among the differing environments. Grain is faintly visible but never intrusive, and I saw no indication that it had been reduced by DNR or other filtering. Although I was initially concerned that this 133-minute film had been compressed to fit on a BD-25, I did not spot any compression-related artifacts. It's likely that the saving grace was the relatively large number of scenes involving two-person conversations, including some conducted through computer screens; these are usually a gift to the compressionist

Assassins Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's theatrical 5.1 track, presented here in DTS lossless, is elegant but not showy. This may the only film ever made in which large amounts of gunfire provide no opportunity for sound designers to show off, because every shot is silenced. Instead, the sonic style is set in the opening sequence, as Rath and Ketcham walk through a swamp. The sound of distant thunder rumbles through the surrounds, panning left and right, along with the sound of a few birds. The focus remains on the dialogue in front and Mark Mancina's mournful underscore. (Mancina was reportedly called in at the last minute, when Donner rejected the score submitted by Michael Kamen.) The surrounds provide the same kind of service throughout the rest of the film, whether it's the passage of traffic during various chase scenes, or of trains during a key sequence on Seattle mass transit, or pigeons in the plaza outside the Banco Internacional. Bass extension is full but natural. The people may be strange, but the physical phenomena are normal.

Assassins Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

I remember seeing an EPK-like promotional piece on HBO when Assassins was in theaters, and it contained footage from the Puerto Rican location that doubled for the island where the film's final act is set. It's unfortunate that Warner couldn't be troubled to include such existing material, but then again the DVD of Assassins didn't even include the trailer.

• Theatrical Trailer (SD; 1.85:1, enhanced; 2:42). It's a decent trailer for a film that's not easy to categorize.

Assassins Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

At over two hours, Assassins should feel like a long film, yet it never does, at least to me. But I don't have a problem with any of the three leads in these roles, and the film is entirely about them. If you don't like any of the three actors, or if you need to have Stallone punching out bad guys, or Banderas being charming, or Moore in tears, then Assassins will have you shifting in your seat and checking your watch. But if you're willing to let these actors do something different, then Assassins is a slickly made, offbeat entertainment with a satisfying finale. The Blu-ray's technical merits are above reproach and highly recommended.