The Assassin's Code

I saw the film's world premiere last week at the Cleveland International Film Festival, where it sold out every showing. It's a noir crime-thriller that's not what you'd expect -- it hits the ground running with action, then expands into an intelligent character piece. Justin Chatwin and Peter Stormare are both arresting in the kind of roles that indie films allow actors to break out of their stereotypes -- Stormare delivers an unexpectedly touching, tour-de-force monologue in one of the best standalone scenes I've ever seen; and veteran radio guy Mark Thompson ("The Mark and Brian Show") is fantastic as rookie-detective Justin's captain and surrogate father figure. The dialog is smart and laugh-out-loud funny, and the soundtrack is knockout. A real hidden gem of a film.

Beautiful shots of Clevaland. Classic cob, mob crime drama. Good gun play. Peter Stormare is ruthless. Justin Chatwain is an Edward Norton lookalike in this flick. Plus, I had the honor of being in it.

Take a drink every time you hear a cop movie cliche, you'll be smashed in ten minutes.

The Assassin's Code (2018) is not a bad film, for direct-to-video fare. The major beats are predictable well in advance. The heroes, villains and villains in the guise of heroes might as well be wearing black and white Stetsons and the characters who are about to die might as well be wearing red shirts. Production values are modest, although they do utilize an elegant mansion, casket and several luxury automobiles. Cinematography is unimaginatve, other than a few aerial shots that seem to be stock images. As is typical of low-budget productions, the film relies heavily on jiggly-cam shots which are distracting and shatter willful suspension of disbelief. The action/stunt choreography, car scenes and gunfights seem about thirty years out of date. The love story is not well developed and the reconciliation near the end seems to come out of nowhere. The acting is generally pretty good. Justin Chatwin is credible in the lead and Peter Stormare delivers a nuanced performance. Sprinkled throughout the film are little gems of dialogue and characterization that shine against the unimpressive background. While the film employs a lot of tropes and often seems familiar, it offers a few fresh moments. The damsel in distress scene has a unusual twist.

This is a watchable movie more commendable because of its very modest budget. The marketing blurb was somewhat misleading in saying that a ghost-like assassin was stalking the investigative detective, as if said assassin's identity was unknown. We clearly knew the assassin's identity after his dispatch of no less than four victims in the early part of the movie! The over-riding characteristic of this film for me was the very, very pronounced audio - loud musical score, loud sound effects. But this somewhat annoying quirk had a commendable spin-off....it is one of the very few U.S. movies in which the dialogue was easy to follow - no mumbling here. Boy, what a relief. I don't think I'm alone in being critical of the audio, especially diction in films from the U.S. For this improvement here alone, it deserves six stars rather than five.