Assassin

I don't know what fills me with despair more - the fact that Danny Dyer keeps making " movies", or the fact that I keep watching them.

Anyway in this one Danny plays Danny Dyer pretending to be a hit-man ( zzzz) who falls in love with...I've lost the will to go on and this is just the synopsis on the DVD box.

Anyway Danny is in this, along with that Kemp from eastenders . and his brother ( no, not Steve Mcfadden the other one). Danny spends much of the movie riding about pointlessly on a motorbike. Well I suppose the running time has to be padded out somehow.

There is little action and no suspense. After a dull action scene in which Dyer wanders about without taking his crash helmet off ( like a less animated version of the Stig with a lisp), he receives a summons to meet gangland heavies martin kemp and his brother ( not Phil Mitchell). After a cheeky nandos and some top bantz wiv da lads, Dyer gets the info on his next execution..and from there things begin to get interesting . ( if by interesting you mean predictable, boring and idiotic).

As usual Dyer looks bored and vaguely resentful, martin Kemp looks grateful to be earning enough to pay for hair dye, and everyone else seems to be auditioning to be an extra in The Walking Dead.

There is nothing that resembles a plot or a denouement.

Insert your own joke about Danny Dyer and "helmet". I can't be bothered.

Review: I don't think that you will be that surprised that I didn't really enjoy this movie. It seemed quite cheap and the storyline wasn't that great. Its about a hit-man (Dyer) whose been hired by the Kemp brothers to take out a business man who cheated them out of there money. While Dyer is scoping his victim, he falls in love with a club dancer who happens to be his victims daughter. When he finally takes care of business, her identity comes to light and she starts to put the pieces together to try and find her father's killer. The Kemp brothers don't like the fact that she is meddling in there business so they hire Dyer to take out the girl, which he is reluctant to do. They then flee from London so she can be safe, but they soon get hunted down so Dyer has to use his skills to protect the girl and his own life. It was good to see the Kemp brothers together again, after the brilliant Krays movie, but this movie was terrible. I predicted what was going to happen, right from the beginning of the film so the storyline wasn't that great. I've seen Dyer play these type of roles, many times before so his performance was average but the Kemp brothers were great. I found the girl quite annoying after a while and the awful music all the way through the film didn't help. At the end of the day, it's just your everyday Dyer movie. Poor.

Round-Up: After watching this film, I really can't see were the budget went. It's filmed around London but most of the scenes are in houses or in a nightclub. Anyway, I honestly think that Dyer going into Eastenders, was the best thing for his career because his movies are really poor. There's only a handful of movies that were really good in this genre, like the Business, Sexy Beast and Essex Boys but there isn't anything original coming from the UK. I rate Dyer for not going to Hollywood to try and make a big name for himself and he has kept true to his acting abilities but he has really hit a dead end when it comes to the movies that he chooses. I'm glad that they stopped bringing out all of the football hooligan movies because they were getting a bit tedious and there's not that much range for movies in that genre. The problem isn't only in the UK! We have hit the time of the remake in Hollywood which has made some of the big actors only take original projects. That means that we have a flood of new actors who can't really act or haven't got any screen charisma. Anyway, in this movie it really is the Kemp brothers who show professionalism and steal the screen. I just hope that they take on more projects in the future.

Budget: $3.5million Worldwide Gross: N/A

I recommend this movie to people who are into their English gangster movies about a hit-man who is given a job that he is reluctant to do. 2/10

Curiosity got the better of me as I ignored the negative comments and low rating to watch this disappointing and woeful gangland thriller. Danny Dyer will probably take the heat for this dud but that's not fair on him because given the right director and script he can show he can be a compelling actor. A director like Nick Love (Football Factory (2004), The Business (2005), Marching Powder (2025) knows how to use him in the right way. When he is playing a supporting character, usually on the back foot and showing his vulnerability, that's when he shines. Another example was the way Christopher Smith used him in Severance (2006) where he was an inconsequential character at the beginning that had to rise to the fore as circumstances dictated and became the hero. In other words writer/director J. K. Amalou just sees Dyer as this stereotypical tough geezer hired to carry his film on his misunderstood and much maligned reputation which doesn't work because there needs to be more substance which Amalou doesn't provide.

It would seem Dyer is given minimal direction as the Assassin as he proceeds to just show up, take out a gun and go through the motions in a cliched, uninspiring and tired gangland thriller. The characters are under developed, the story is not engaging enough and the music score is just plain annoying.

Teaming Dyer up with brothers Martin & Gary Kemp, who impressed in their feature film debut playing real life gangsters in Peter Medak's The Krays (1990) must have seemed like an inspired idea but J. K. Amalou rests on his laurels and makes no effort to craft an engaging thriller on the back of this, The Long Good Friday (1980) this is not. It's lazy filmmaking that relies on the misguided notion that if we get some tough guy actors to front the film we'll get away with any old tosh as long as there are guns, violence and a bit of nudity thrown in with a London backdrop.

Amazingly this is executive produced by Martin Scorsese regular Barbara De Fina of Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991) Casino (1995) and Hugo (2011) fame but despite her pedigree she brings nothing of that to this project. No wonder Danny decided this was to be his last feature film before taking refuge in the TV soap Eastenders for the next 10 years where at least he could demonstate his acting chops and became relatable to audiences of all ages as the loveable Mick Carter.

With it's many continuity errors, poor direction, shoddy editing and unlikeable characters Assassin sadly has no redeeming qualities with which to recommend it so this one is strictly for Danny Dyer completists only.

Begins well. Unfortunately the first 5 minutes or so are the absolute highlight. I watched this film mere hours ago and it is already beginning to fade from memory.

Admittedly there were no real "cringe" scenes in which i believed the acting or dialogue or cinematography to be horrible yet nothing stood out about it.

In my mind, the greatest films are the ones you can not only remember, but take something away from the "experience" of watching them. This film was the opposite. I expect to have forgotten it by the time i wake up tomorrow.

Final Advice: Watch only if your intention is to pass time (procrastinate) and you have no real interest or expectation of this movie.

LJ

Sometimes in video games or animation there will be poor dubber who phones it in, they sound very lazy or are probably just in the bathroom reading some paper. It's a truly rare case where an actor of a movie does this, the leading role even, in a perfectly soulless manner. The lead Danny Dyer just stands there muttering some lines with the expression range of one who suffers Botox overdose. Other theories include unworldly possession or he might just be a robot, that would be far more fascinating.

Jamie (Danny Dyer) is a poker-faced hit-man. One day he meets with a woman who turns out to be involved with his work. There is little acting to speak of, some supporting characters are decent, but almost the entirety of the movie is spent on looking at Jamie looking at nothing. He looks the same when he kills people, engages in small talk or meets the love of his life. Audiences at home are probably more vivid as they react to the unbearable stiff acting.

Visual is bizarre, the camera seems to be shifting from side to side for no reason. It would shuffle slightly to the back of the head when normal conversations occur or wobble from behind some object. There's also plenty of running or riding bike, which is fine to create atmosphere, but it feels unnecessary after the twelfth time. The script is so abrupt and random, it doesn't even explain basic plot clearly let alone convince the audiences that it has authentic relationship.

Soundtrack is a repetitive humming theme throughout the movie, and at times it blasts the volume for screaming scenes. People, especially girl characters, would scream so zealously in hope to prevent audience from sleeping through. Action is nearly non-existent. Forget about choreography, Assassin only stands there, equally rigid, and fires away. No stunts or believable motion like taking cover.

There is no aspect of this movie that isn't severely flawed. Beware, Assassin will kill your time. That pun is as cringe-worthy as the movie.