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When Dr Ben Carroway (McCarthy) is involved in an assassination where the killers commit suicide once trapped he finds that the killers have no criminal record. However they are all registered missing children and sets on a journey with one of the killer's sister (Portia de Rossi) and a mob hitman (Robert Patrick).

This is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Usually anything with Andrew McCarthy in the lead is the equivalent of the kiss of death, but here he seems to have done alright here. The action scenes are fast moving and have a quota of tension, even the gunfights etc are exciting if a little far fetched at times. The main strength here is the plot, it starts out a little unbelievable but once it starts moving you forget the problems and see the bigger picture. The story holds several little twists and turns that hold the interest well, and the final resolution tidies up the problems of the unbelievable story by offering a solution that isn't that far-fetched (in fact depressingly possible). Nick Mancuso's Dr Greely is far too hammy and is bordering on a bad spoof of a bond villain, but happily he doesn't drag the surrounding film down with him.

McCarthy is pretty good as the hero and only the plot makes his job harder by making it all too personal and relying on too many coincidences. Patrick is as good as he usually is, albeit he's lumbered with the wise-cracking mobster but he still is entertaining. Rossi (best known for Ally McBeal) does well at first as the sister of a stolen child, but her sudden transformation into a gun-toting fearless warrior is a little too much to swallow.

Overall this is much better than you'd expect from this type of DTV film, the plot is a little far-fetched at times but the drama and action make up for the lack of realism.

I believe that I just watched this movie on HBO (11/13)under the name "Perfect Assassins" The following is the copy from the DirectTV description:

Other. Andrew McCarthy, Robert Patrick, Nick Mancuso. (1998) Ruthless terrorists battle an FBI specialist and may be linked to his past. (AC,AL,V) Not Rated - Content

Basically, someone has been turning children into killers and conditioning them as animals in some bizarre experiment. Nick Mancuso also stars in this movie as the antagonist, a psychotic behavioral scientist. Quite a few implausible scenes if you could buy into the premise itself. Some decent action but all in all not a very well done movie.

It's something to watch when you find you have 50 channels and nothing on. That's how I found it. Then I got curious about the leading lady. She now plays Nell on Ally McBeal. When I realized who she was, that pretty much served as the only excitement this movie offered.

There was a vague effort at an X-files-esque conspiracy ending that failed miserably. Still nothing is as bad as "Yor-The Hunter From The Future", my vote for worst picture ever.

Given the names in the cast this movie was exceptionally bad. Poor acting, poor scripts, poor directing. Miss this one on purpose. The settings are about the only things, that have any redeeming quality. The weapons are nice but have unrealistic damage to objects also. I'd rather watch Lion King for the 10millionth time with the kids, than watch this one again.

Watching this disaster, I think I must've said "I can't believe that I'm still watching this" about fifty times. I'm supposed to believe that the guy from Mannequin is tough? HAH! And Robert Patrick, shame on you! In this film, Evil T-100 you ain't.

I would've rated this movie a "1," but it was comically bad. Too bad MST3K isn't in production anymore - this one's prime material.

Story: After the dignitary he is guarding is assassinated, FBI profiler Ben Carroway captures one of the assassins, the others committing suicide. Discovering the assassin was reported missing as a child, Ben heads to Mexico along with the killer's sister and a friend, where he uncovers a plot to turn kidnapped children into hard-core killers. What starts off as an intriguing concept quickly becomes a formulaic action film. The beginning is expertly done, with a shootout in an alleyway & the assassins killing themselves is a plot point that is not usual fare for an action film. The extended chase scene is reasonably exciting. But at the point the characters reach Mexico, the film falls into a formulaic revenge plot. Don't get me wrong, the behavior modification scheme is interesting, but the film fails to use it in a novel way. As for the acting, Andrew McCarthy does well with his role while Robert Patrick has a lot of fun playing the shady Leo, stealing the limelight from his fellow actors. Grade: C+ Review by M. K. Geist