Assassination Tango

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.

In `Assassination Tango,' a film for which he provided both script and direction, Robert Duvall plays an aging professional killer who also happens to be a tango aficionado. Like the gangsters in `The Godfather,' John J. Anderson is able to compartmentalize the morally contradictory elements of his life: he can gun down in cold blood a total stranger, while at the same time lavishing limitless love and affection on his girlfriend and the ten-year old `stepdaughter' whom he worships and adores. When he is sent to Buenos Aires to take out a disreputable retired general, John falls in love with both a lovely young dancer and the style of `genuine' tango dancing to which she introduces him.

`Assassination Tango,' despite the unsavory elements of the story, is a quiet, muted film that is more about this strangely paradoxical character than it is about either assassination or tango. John is a man who has kept his emotions pretty well in check his whole life and now, as he begins to see the end of that life coming, he feels the need to make some kind of meaningful connection with the people around him. What makes John interesting is the way in which Duvall has chosen to portray him. For the most part, John seems totally subdued in his mannerisms and tone of voice, but he often erupts unexpectedly in fits of uncontrolled mania and violence – aimed more at objects like payphones or people who annoy him than at his carefully chosen victims, whom he liquidates with an emotional detachment worthy of his profession. Duvall hits all the right notes in making his character both frighteningly bizarre and strangely sympathetic all at the same time.

As a writer, Duvall does better with dialogue than with the narrative framework as a whole. Particularly effective is John's constantly asking the Argentineans with whom he's conversing to repeat what they have just said. Most writer/directors would not be shrewd enough to add this calculated bit of realism, which seems just right given the bilingual situation he has set up. Unfortunately, Duvall's considerably less successful with the story itself, which often wanders aimlessly, lacks clarity (particularly in the cloak-and-dagger sequences) and suffers from an overall failure to meld the various elements into a compelling whole. The supporting performers are all good, but, ultimately, we are left wondering just what Duvall had in mind when he set about making this film. If his purpose was to show that even coldhearted killers can love their kids and appreciate art and beauty, then that ground was pretty much covered by `The Godfather' movies. Even the tango scenes are generally blasé and uninspiring, forcing us to wonder just what it is about this dance that both intoxicates John and leads one of the women in the film to say that the tango is `life, love, hate,' an encomium that certainly doesn't seem justified by the dance sequences in this film.

`Assassination Tango' deserves to be seen for Duvall's performance and for the uniqueness of both its setting and its main character. Just don't expect to be swept off your feet by the dancing.

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.

I love Duvall as an actor but he should stick to acting. Assassin Tango gets lost in its' subplot, long and mundane sequences about the assassins relationship with an Argentinian tango dancer. It doesn't go anywhere and is seriously in need of editing. The main story, about a hit on an ex-general responsible for too many desaparacidos is better but pretty chopped up so the tension is lost. Duvall seemed to suffer from the Woody Allen syndrome, trying to reclaim his youth.

If you just want to watch some good dancing then you can watch most of this film and enjoy. If you want a movie with real substance you'll need to look elsewhere. I got this kind of surreal feeling about all the characters in this movie, except for the Argentinean dancers. There probably supposed to be some higher meaning to this movie to correlate the tango with the job of an assassin, but I missed it to be sure. Its not like you won't understand what's going on while you watch the movie, but you may wonder what's the bigger picture to all the small interactions between the characters.

With the exception of the main plot, featuring Robert Duvall, I don't feel like there was any closure on the sub-plots and the characters played by Ruben Blades, Luciana Pedraza, and some of the other assorted supporting characters. There is a lot of room to expand upon the intrigues and double-crosses witnessed in the movie, but there really isn't a lot of explanation as to why someone is doing what they are doing and for whom they are doing it. This is what led me to the incomplete feeling I got watching this film. Maybe a director's cut might shed some light on a lot of the questions I found myself asking about character motives and behaviors.

This a movie that no one will fault you for missing and no one will look at you like you've got four heads if you go see it. Although, I think many people will be saying "I never heard of it".