Soul Assassin

"Soul Assassin" tries to cover up the absence of substance and bucks with hyperkinetics and effects; nice try but no cigar. Shallow, transparent, contrived, and just plain stupid. Let's hope Malkin gets a real job. Pass. (D-)

This was absolutely the WORST movie ever made in Holland and I've seen them all! Being Dutch myself, I am ashamed that this "videoclip-type" movie was made with a lot of Dutch effort (actors, production and ofcourse locations).

The story and the acting are so bad and corny that I first thought they made it as an experimental joke. But they MEANT it! Especially the way that this movie was advertised really annoyed me once I saw the finished product. This was supposed to be a movie that would blow us away and it was supposed to be a rollercoaster-ride of action... We were deceived: the plot is worse than a standard action-movie, the blue filter on the images and the weird experimental imaging gives you a headache, and the biggest stunt in Soul Assassin is when Skeet Ullrich rides his bicycle(!) into a canal...! Need I say more...? The director (Laurence Malkin) used to make MTV-videos for rapper Coolio and it SHOWS! My advice: DON'T bother renting this one, you'll kick yourself after if you DO!

Beyond an absolutely brilliant performance by Skeet Ulrich as a man trained to be a hit-man for a criminal corporation, there's not much to recommend this film. It's not as terrible as some reviewers remarked - beneath the flashy visuals lies a rather old-fashioned suspense thriller. Unfortunately, the producers were clearly shopping for another "Bourne Identity", and the director, probably a meth-addict, had watched too many John Woo films. I mention this because while I watched the bicycle chase stunts - all too clearly created by the editor rather than the stunt crew - I thought of Jackie Chan's marvelous bike chase in "Project A" and thought to myself, 'gee, that's what this movie needs - Jackie Chan, not John Woo'. But John Woo is the influence here, and since Woo is an arch-stylist, to imitate him you have to have a real schmaltzy but original plot going on beneath the style; and while this film has the schmaltz, it has no originality to speak of. There are glaring references to Hitchcock and Stanley Donen, Samuel Fuller's "Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street" and an obscure thriller based on an Alistair MacLean novel, "Puppet on a Chain" - glaring because the originals were so much better and certainly don't need this sort of 'tribute'.

I won't say this is a bad thriller; some will find it entertaining enough. But it pretends to be so much more - what a disappointment.

It's not easy to do, but a story that had potential simply sinks under very, very bad direction.

In film one of the director's jobs is to tell the viewer where to look. True that. But it does not mean that he should be shouting "Look at me!" when he should be concentrating on story and characterization.

A reported $7 million goes down the toilet in developing this story of greed, jealousy, and revenge. Actors who have done very fine work in the past are simply stranded on screen. That's bad enough.

But for some reason a great chunk of the action is filmed using a blue filter over the lens. This is understandable for the exteriors at night. But it looks more than slightly stupid for scenes in, say, a living room.

The action is sped up in some scenes for no reason whatsoever. And the fight scenes are edited so incoherently that it's impossible to tell who's who are what's going on.

Watching movies directed by, say, Ed Wood can be a fun experience. Catatonic actors, cardboard sets, special effects that totally fail, it's sort of like watching the community theater group perform on the stage in the American Legion hall. You know that they're genuinely trying to do their best and it's easy to root for everyone involved.

Here, the gimmicks just seem to try to cover up undeveloped story arcs.

There is one very good thing about this, though. Director Laurence Malkin directed exactly one more movie after this, in 2006, and has not worked behind the camera since then although he has remained active in the film business. People seeking proof that God created an orderly universe need look no further.

What I hated most about the film is that the building most of the film is shot in has is located in Amsterdam, but the view is of a bridge in Rotterdam for a resident of Amsterdam this would be his ultimate nightmare.

then in a, i have to say, nicely shot chase on the canals, suddenly, the character played by Skeet Ulrich is in Utrecht. there are too many of these things in the movie to explain.

maybe this is the cause, of the film not getting really good credits in Holland.

An advice to future directors, who want to shoot a film in holland, take notice of the fact, somethings don`t mix, taking the view of the Rotterdam bridge from a Building in Amsterdam as main example.