Assassination Tango

Robert Duvall directed this film, which seems first of all made in order to allow Robert Duvall the actor to play a pretended complex character of a paid killer with a soul. From this point of view the film is a failure. The character does not succeed to gain the sympathy of the viewer, and the complexity of the character is faked. Too much is badly written or un-explained in this movie. Even if action is not supposed to be in the focus, the reasons and details of the murder conspiracy and the events around are left too much in the fuzzy zone.

What remains is the well described atmosphere of Argentina, and the love of the character with tango dancing, and the beautiful Argentinian who introduces him to the secrets of tango. These are indeed the best moments of the film, but it is still to little to sustain the film, and left me with the feeling that they are strangely disconnected from the rest.

An un-satisfactory film experience. 6/10 on my personal scale.

The tango scenes were absorbing. But they seemed to be just kluged on to a movie about an aging, warm-hearted gangster. I kept waiting for something to tie these seemingly disparate plot lines together. Nothing ever did. See it to admire a great actor. See it to admire some wonderful dancing and scenery. Just don't try to make sense of it.

If you just want to watch some good dancing then you can watch most of this film and enjoy. If you want a movie with real substance you'll need to look elsewhere. I got this kind of surreal feeling about all the characters in this movie, except for the Argentinean dancers. There probably supposed to be some higher meaning to this movie to correlate the tango with the job of an assassin, but I missed it to be sure. Its not like you won't understand what's going on while you watch the movie, but you may wonder what's the bigger picture to all the small interactions between the characters.

With the exception of the main plot, featuring Robert Duvall, I don't feel like there was any closure on the sub-plots and the characters played by Ruben Blades, Luciana Pedraza, and some of the other assorted supporting characters. There is a lot of room to expand upon the intrigues and double-crosses witnessed in the movie, but there really isn't a lot of explanation as to why someone is doing what they are doing and for whom they are doing it. This is what led me to the incomplete feeling I got watching this film. Maybe a director's cut might shed some light on a lot of the questions I found myself asking about character motives and behaviors.

This a movie that no one will fault you for missing and no one will look at you like you've got four heads if you go see it. Although, I think many people will be saying "I never heard of it".

I'm a student of Robert Duvall's career. The films he has personally written and directed tend to to quirky and the subjects are those in which he has a strong interest. He has spent a fair amount of time in Argentina, and has a passionate interest in the Tango. His leading lady later became his wife. My suspicion is that Duvall made this movie out of love and could care less if it made money. The opaque nature of the assassination side of the story fits right in with Argentine political history. The Tango portion of the film is very well done, and shows his love of the dance. In any case, the movie is worth watching if you are a Duvall fan.

I love this movie. Beautiful. Thank you. The cast, the scenes, the music, the story, the cinematography. Perfect. Total entertainment. The drama, the comedy, the dance, even the smells. Robert Duvall's name in a picture guarantees great value. I wish to see many more of these superb works from the director and all the actors, and other creators of this film. Here is another example of great American movie making. I also want to say thanks to Sundance to show this piece on TV, unfortunatelly there aren't any movie theaters that would show this and similar movies. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys watching a movie with great acting, nice music, and not the usual boring plot.