The Assassin's Code

Went to the 5/12 screening at Harmony Gold theatre in Hollywood and really enjoyed the movie. It was a special screening that was promoted by Mark Thompson (of Mark & Brian) that is a co-star in it. Plot was a bit predictable, but the film was good as it had some good laughs, of which the lines were improvised by the actors (as we learned in the Q&A). The score, by Austin Wintory, was really good. It hit the film noir vibe nicely.

Worth watching for Stormare's limited scenes and some okay mob stuff. And I have a weird thing for Lifetime diva Yancy Butler, so there's that. But Chatwin chews the scenery shamelessly, the relationship scenes are torture and the dialogue is laugh out loud cop shop. Still, I was only intemittently bored and mostly entertained. Nice fish, too.

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

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.

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.