Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.0

Assassin's Bullet Blu-ray Movie Review

Shoot the Writers

Reviewed by Michael Reuben August 13, 2012

Assassin's Bullet made a brief theatrical appearance in early August 2012 before being dumped to video barely two weeks later, and it has the rare distinction of achieving a perfect zero at Rotten Tomatoes. With thumbs unanimously pointed downward, it feels churlish to pile on, but I wasn't able to see anything in Isaac Florentine's film other than a silly mess. Florentine makes the most of the exotic setting in Sofia, Bulgaria—the film's original title, Sofia, was changed by its U.S. distributors—but superficial gloss is all he provides. Then again, some viewers go for that sort of thing.

The film's story originated with star Elika Portnoy, who is from Sofia but now lives in Boston, where she models and generates her own film projects. In the included featurette about the making of the film, Portnoy says that she needed two co-writers to give her story "structure", which makes you wonder what the story looked like initially, because the labor of screenwriters Nancy L. Babine and Hans Feuersinger created little more than a collage of espionage cliches— part Alias, part La Femme Nikita, part The Manchurian Candidate. Just to name such precursors is to be reminded of how far Assassin's Bullet falls short of whatever aim it might have had. Watching actors of the caliber of Donald Sutherland and Timothy Spall being so badly wasted is a painful experience. Either they thought they were signing up for something better, or they wanted a paid vacation in Bulgaria.

It's hardly a spoiler to reveal that Portnoy plays three different roles in Assassin's Bullet, or that they're all the same woman. Despite token gestures, the common identity isn't hidden from the audience. The real question is the connection among the three personalities, and it's a question that's never satisfactorily answered.

The first identity is Vicky, a mousy blonde school teacher married to a much older Bulgarian diplomat, Mihail (Valentin Ganev). She teaches English to Bulgarian schoolchildren as part of a successful ESL ("English as a Second Language") program sponsored by the American Embassy and overseen by Robert Diggs (Christian Slater), a former FBI agent who is now in the diplomatic service. Vicky also bears the psychological scars of a dimly remembered childhood trauma that claimed the lives of her parents. For this, Vicky attends regular sessions with an English psychiatrist, Dr. Kahn (Spall).

The second identity is a raven-haired assassin known only as the Killer. The Killer is a ghost with the customary array of unbeatable skills with firearms, knives and martial arts. She receives her instructions by encrypted text message or cell phone transmission and eliminates her targets swiftly and without hesitation. Her standing order is "no witnesses".

Demonstrating that a working woman can have it all, the same body housing Vicky and the Killer also has room (and time in the day) for a third identity, Ursula. A belly dancer with flaming red hair, Ursula performs at Folk Club Versai, a lavish night spot where Dr. Kahn goes to unwind after a hard day's work treating patients. Incredibly, the good doctor does not recognize his regular patient when she's undulating directly in front of him in a green dress and red wig.

Even more incredibly, neither does Dr. Kahn's friend, Robert Diggs, even though Diggs is repeatedly described as an "exemplary" investigator when he used to work for the FBI. Diggs and Dr. Kahn meet at Club Versai, although it's unclear why Diggs, to whom the locale is obviously unfamiliar, is just now joining his old friend at what is clearly his regular hangout. In any case, Diggs is immediately taken when he first sees Ursula but doesn't seem to recognize her as the English teacher, Vicky, he met earlier the same day.

Then again, Diggs is one of those characters who is more plot function than person—or, in this case, multiple plot functions. When necessary, Diggs is a man with a troubled past, having lost his wife four years earlier to a murder in New York, which caused him to quit the FBI and retreat to lightweight diplomatic work in Sofia. At times, Diggs still displays the crack investigative instincts that made him a first-rate agent, allowing him to spot clues about the mysterious Killer that the Bulgarian police have missed. But at other moments, the story requires him to be an idiot, such as when he's transfixed by Ursula's face and figure to such a degree that he never notices her resemblance to Vicky, or when he spots the distinctive tattoo on her lower back, but seems to forget that Vicky has the same one in the same place. (Director Florentine goes out of his way to show Diggs catching a glimpse of Vicky's ink.)

But what can you expect from writers who don't even bother with a credible explanation for how Dr. Kahn, the Sofia-based shrink, and Diggs, the New York-based FBI man, became "old friends"? And no, there's never any hint that Diggs was one of the doctor's patients.

Refusing to accept Diggs's objections that he has retired from field work, U.S. Ambassador Ashdown (Sutherland) relays an order from Washington that Diggs is to begin investigating the Killer's activities. The scenes between Diggs and Ashdown are the best part of the film, because Ashdown is a car salesman who made major contributions to the President's campaign and was rewarded with an ambassadorship. Donald Sutherland is clearly having fun playing Ashdown's sleazy detachment as he tells Diggs that he's just a messenger, but can get Diggs a great deal on new wheels when they return to the States.

The Killer has attracted the attention of U.S. intelligence by effectively reviving an abandoned U.S. operation that had stalled, because U.S. authorities could never get close enough to certain high-priority targets to take them down. Now the mysterious Killer is doing it for them. Who is this operative, and how is he (or, as it happens, she) accomplishing these hits?

The "how" is never explained, because the source of the Killer's intel remains undisclosed, and Diggs's investigation doesn't reveal much, because the film isn't really about him, despite his substantial screen time. Assassin's Bullet is about the mysterious woman with multiple personalities that may or may not have been deliberately engineered. The extent to which these "multiples" communicate with each other remains unclear, but the filmmakers don't care either way. They're more interested in choreographing scenes of elaborate mayhem, which are no more involving than watching someone else play a video game, because there's no investment in the outcome (as in, e.g., a Bourne film or La Femme Nikita). By the end you just shrug and ask yourself, "What was that about?"

Assassin's Bullet Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Assassin's Bullet is yet another in the growing canon of films "shot on Red". The cinematographer was Australian DP Ross W. Clarkson, who shot Undisputed II and III for director Florentine. The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from ARC Entertainment, which was presumably sourced from digital files, provides a richly detailed and sharp but not harshly digital image, with the superior depth and shadow detail that is typical of Red-originated projects. The color palette has been adjusted in post-production according to the female identity whose presence, on-screen or off, most influences the scene. The Killer brings blues and other cool tones to the fore; Ursula brings golds, reds and other warm elements, which are strongly saturated without bleeding; and Vicky's presence usually dulls the colors to something bland and less saturated. Blacks are strong and well-differentiated, and contrast is never cranked too high, except in flashback and dream sequences, where the image has been deliberately distorted for effect.

Material shot on Red generally compresses well, and since the total amount of footage on the disc amounts to no more than two hours, a BD-25 is sufficient to accommodate it without compression errors.

Assassin's Bullet Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is active and immersive from the opening moments, when the sounds of Vicky's memories fill the surrounds. The surrounds are active throughout most of the film, whether filling in the ambiance of the city environment, the boisterous Club Versai or the controlled chaos of the Killer's assaults. However, the mixing philosophy isn't the kind that puts dialogue or foley effects noticeably to the left or right, distracting attention away from the screen. The surrounds blend seamlessly with the front speaker array (assuming your system is properly calibrated) to create a general sonic presence, which gains greater impact by the occasional boost of LFE. Dialogue is always intelligible (though not always helpful), and the serviceable score by Simon Stevens, a relative newcomer, sounds about as good as it can, given its impossible task of bridging the film's constantly shifting moods and points of view.

Assassin's Bullet Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes in Sofia: The Making of Assassin's Bullet (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1; 20:14): Featuring interviews with Slater, Spall and Portnoy, this featurette focuses primarily on the mechanics of making the film, with only superficial discussion of the plot. Substantial on-set footage is included.
• Theatrical Trailer (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1; 1:47): To the extent there's anything at all to give away, this trailer does so.
• Additional Trailers: At startup the disc plays trailers (in HD) for 96 Minutes, Age of the Dragons and Blood Money. These can be skipped with the chapter forward button and are not otherwise available once the disc loads.

Assassin's Bullet Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Assassin's Bullet isn't a good movie, but the Blu-ray looks and sounds good. That's enough for some, but it's not enough for me to recommend it.