Nemesi

The Assignment (2016)

*** (out of 4)

Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez) is a hitman who pulls a job not knowing what impact it will have on him. It turns out that he murdered the brother of a doctor (Sigourney Weaver) who gets her revenge by kidnapping Frank and turning him into a woman. Now, as a woman, Frank must seek revenge against those who did this to him.

Walter Hill got back into the director's chair with THE ASSIGNMENT, which is certainly one of the biggest WTF movies to come along in a very long time. Seriously, this here is something you would have expected in the 1970s but not in today's political climate. Sure enough, the film was released to all sorts of controversy with various groups being offended by the story. I must admit that there are a lot of flaws with the movie but at the same time it's so darn weird that I couldn't help but be entertained.

As I said, this is a very strange movie on a lot of levels but if you've ever wanted to see Rodriguez with a beard and a dick then you'll love it. Yes, you actually see that as the film is quite sleazy in its own right and that includes a lot of nudity once the "female" side comes out. The movie is somewhat brave in what it attempts to do and I guess you could say that Rodriguez gives a rather brave performance. Not only is she constantly naked on the screen but this wasn't the easiest roles to pull off. She certainly handles the action quite nicely and she's strong enough to hold your attention throughout.

I think the biggest problem with the film are the scenes inside the mental hospital where the Weaver character is telling her story. These scenes really take away from the revenge side of things and there's just no doubt that these moments aren't nearly as entertaining as the stuff with the hitman seeking revenge. The action scenes are directed quite nicely by Hill and it was great seeing him add some style back to his films. The movie looks and sounds quite good but it does start to lose its story as it moves along.

THE ASSIGNMENT isn't a film meant for everyone but if you like weird movies you should find it entertaining.

This isn't an awful movie and it does have some good moments, but I struggle to think that it really works. Firstly the story itself is pretty improbable although the idea of a mad surgeon wanted to experiment is not new it is still a bizarre thing to want to do, especially to worry about the quality of her work when changing the guys sex to female. Michelle Rodriguez does a pretty good acting job but never really convinces that she is ever male. From the outset it looked like a girl with a beard, apart from the shower scene where they must have used either CGI or good prosthetic. She also didn't really convince as an assassin and made some pretty silly errors of judgement but I guess that is down to the script rather than acting. So over all I have mixed feelings. It isn't a bad movie just not a great one.

I think Michelle Rodriguez did a great job. Her attitude was that of a man, yet when she started stripping she still enticed!

The story line was interesting enough to keep watching and Sigourney did a great job with her superiority complex and cold confident statements.

~give change a chance.

They should have had a man play the part of the male Frank Kitchen. Also should have voice-overed Michelle Rodriguez's voice. Her fake guy voice with accent sounded forced.

The plot is centered on a hit man named Frank Kitchen, played by Michelle Rodriguez, who pisses off the wrong black market plastic surgeon (Sigourney Weaver) by killing her brother being Rodriguez's assignment. Exacting her revenge on Kitchen, the doctor in a rather unorthodox method forces a sex change operation on him to become a woman as a form of psychological torture on Frank to endure the rest of his/her life without any way of fully reversing the procedure. Obviously a tad bit peeved by this, Frank Kitchen seeks retribution for the crimes committed against his body and goes on a one-way killing spree to end the evil doctor's rein of terror.

On paper, this sounds like it would be interesting. No matter what one person's views may be on how good or bad the premise sounds, it is a safe bet that most would hear this synopsis and be at least a little intrigued by it. I can't say that I've ever come across a movie with a plot motivation even remotely similar to "The Assignment". Unfortunately the execution felt sloppy, drawn out, dull, and all around unoriginal. This same exact movie could probably exist beat for beat without the introduction to any sort of gender reassignment operation in the script. Just another quick rewrite and this is your basic revenge film, only with far less interesting characters or action set pieces to be entranced by. The movie goes back and forth within its timeline to tell the story with one line following the plot of Frank Kitchen getting the procedure done to him and seeking answers as well as revenge on the doctor. The second line is set after the events of Kitchen finding and putting an end to the doctor's black market business with the doctor being interviewed by a psychiatrist in an insane asylum about what really went down. The secondary thread feels like a waste of time only to put the plot on hold and pad out the film to make its 90 minute run time.

If everything containing Sigourney Weaver in the interview sections were taken out, while putting more focus on the actual main plot to include maybe some more character development and hopefully a lot more action beats, this movie would have succeeded at being an entertaining sit. Unfortunately those sections remain, leaving the story to feel dry and leaving zero impact. I know little to nothing about Frank Kitchen, nor do I care about him/her. Michelle Rodriguez does a great job, as always, being a total bad-ass. She carries her own very well, knows how to come across as intense and cool at all times. Her character just has little for her to work with, but she sells being a man forcefully transitioned into a woman terrifically.

As I mentioned before, the movie could have used some more action beats. The action is so minimal and shortly lived I couldn't find much fun to be had. No real intensity or thrills from any action scene on screen. The script comes across as if the writer was twiddling his thumbs until the script reached the hour and a half mark. It has no bite to the action or story, no defining personality that can't be found in countless other revenge films, and such limited humor with a premise as quirky as this could have greatly used. Plus with a plot revolving a hit man turned into a woman, the writers had so many opportunities to play with that idea. There are several scenarios, gimmicks, tricks, and just fun that could have been toyed around with to mix things up and give a much more unique experience. Instead the screenplay squanders this and gives nothing in return. It's as though the first act setup and the prologue were extended and edited into the entirety of the film. For myself, that didn't work and I found myself pretty bored throughout. Also there was one or two plot twists that of course a film like this has, one of them made zero sense and could have been cut while the other had no emotional impact on me whatsoever.

This movie is from the same director that gave us "The Warriors", "48 Hours", "Another 48 Hours", "The Driver", "Red Heat", "Last Man Standing"...this man knows how to make an action movie. This man knows how to make a unique premise memorable, fun, humorous, intense, cool, and exhilarating. I don't understand what happened here. From the direction I could tell this was Walter Hill's style, it is a decent looking film with competently made action sequences. Rare as those scenes may be. In the end, this film isn't truly awful but it doesn't have nearly enough entertainment value to it in order for myself to recommend it. Michelle Rodriguez has a good action lead presence, but isn't given enough character to sink her teeth into. Sigourney Weaver plays crazy pretty well and I did like her performance, but there was more character development provided for her in detriment to Rodriguez's character. The action held little to no impact or energy and the story is nothing memorable. I got nothing else for this movie and I honestly wrote about it way more than I intended. Go watch "The Warriors" if you need a Walter Hill action movie fix.