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.

I have seen this movie and thought it was great. The casting is well done because the characters are actually down to earth people. The acting is closer to the way people are in the real world, which makes parts of the plot more tangible. The photography also makes this movie worth seeing, as it shows the world as it is, not changed in any way whatsoever. For the acting and the plot, as well as the photography, this movie is worth seeing. The movie transports the viewer to the areas the main character goes to, which makes the movie extremely enjoyable. The music is great, and is the basis of the movie, and helps it move along while keeping the viewer interested in it.

I love this film so much I bought it in DVD, and in the last three years have shown it to 1) my Argentine wife; 2) her adult children and their friends; 3)several of my Argentine friends, and 4) the cats (who have to watch it while I'm watching it). All except the last have -- to a person -- found it both completely believable and unremarkable in the sense of "yeah, so what's new?" in its verisimilitude. The film is just about as crazy as real life is in Argentina, and the police-overruling-police scene is just one example. The conversations in the tango joint about the tango and people and Argentina and life are all about as real as I've witnessed here myself.

The longer I'm here the more I realize how difficult it is to portray what Argentina is "really like," mainly because it isn't any one thing but a whole mishmash of cultural, historical, economic, and political things that career around in people's lives and their minds and their emotions continuously.

The only thing I can say for sure is that if you meet anyone -- even an Argentine -- who tells you Argentina and its life and culture are easy to explain, don't believe it.

Someone said living here is like living a Kafka novel, and sometimes it certainly can feel that way. Conspiracy theory as a way of life has been endemic here, as far as I can tell, since the country first got going. The rural-urban split is real -- the whole City of Buenos Aires votes completely differently from the rest of the country and it doesn't mean a whit of difference except that the federal government becomes even more reluctant to help the capital because its politics are so frequently played out on another planet. And I'm not sure I agree with other comments that Argentines have a big inferiority complex; I think it's more like a "confusion" complex, i.e., "Why don't these other people understand life the way I do?"

The film also reminds me a bit of Apochalypse Now in that you just sort of have to watch it -- many times, perhaps -- and realize at the end you're just about as confused as you were when you first saw it, so if you're like me, you accept that, live with it, and are happy to hear any new interpretations that might come along.

Finally, I believe that Argentina is not a comfortable place to live if you're not extremely familiarity with and experienced in living in paradox, confusion, and Isaiah Berlin's theory of "negative freedoms." Thank God, I love it. But I know many don't!

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.

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.