Aidan Quinn on target as lead in 'The Assignment'<\/p>\n
By Nicolas Colombant<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Even though Carlos, alias \"the Jackal\", now
\nstands trial in France for the murder of two French agents and an
\ninformer, we will never know the true measures taken by the
\nintelligence community to capture him.<\/p>\n
Carlos -- who has been blamed for the deaths of at least 83
\npeople -- was on the run for more than 20 years, spilling blood
\nin the name of the extremists who hired him.<\/p>\n
While he proved a very difficult target for antiterrorist
\nagents in pursuit of him, the true nature of this fugitive has
\nproved even more elusive for the makers of a movie.<\/p>\n
The Assignment opens in 1974 with Carlos, played by Aidan
\nQuinn, throwing a grenade into the middle of a crowded Parisian
\ncafe, a scene based on a real incident. From there on, all
\nreality vanishes and the imagination of the young Canadian
\nfilmmaker Christian Duguay takes over.<\/p>\n
The Paris bombing happens under the very nose of CIA agent
\nJack Shaw\/Henry Fields (Donald Sutherland, another Canadian) who
\nfinds this humiliating, and who now has a score to settle with
\nCarlos.<\/p>\n
Shaw finds his chance a decade later when a dead-ringer for
\nthe phantom killer is picked up on the streets of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
Annibal Ramirez (also played by Aidan Quinn) is a Cuban-
\nAmerican navy officer who comes ashore to take pictures and finds
\nhimself getting chased down by the Mossad, the Israeli
\nintelligence partner of the CIA.<\/p>\n
Eventually Ramirez finds himself being interrogated by a top
\nMossad agent, Amos, who is played unconvincingly by a bald Ben
\nKingsley.<\/p>\n
In a case of mistaken identity, Amos believes that Ramirez is
\nCarlos, while the squeaky-clean Ramirez thinks Amos is nuts.<\/p>\n
So it comes as no surprise when we all find out that Carlos is
\nstill AWOL and that Ramirez is planning to sue all of Israel.<\/p>\n
This does, however, enliven the taste buds of Shaw, a regular
\nSOB, who comes up with a plan that defies logic but, after all,
\nwas it not the CIA that tried to blow up Fidel Castro with a fake
\ncigar?<\/p>\n
The plan goes like this: Ramirez will go undercover as Carlos,
\nin order to get the KGB to assassinate the real Carlos. Sounds as
\neasy as one, two, three.<\/p>\n
But the movie unfolds slowly and methodically, with Ramirez
\nfirst being taken to an icy dungeon somewhere near Montreal,
\nwhere he eats porridge and is forced to do sit-ups off a 50-foot
\nbalcony while Amos blows cigar smoke in his face.<\/p>\n
In scenes that make you think Quinn is auditioning for a James
\nBond movie, he plays paint ball in a cemetery and avoids darting
\nsnowmobiles. He also learns how to case a room in five seconds
\nand displays a unique talent for identifying cigarette stubs in
\ndust bins.<\/p>\n
The training teaches him to act and feel like Carlos, helping
\nhim to find the evil inside the good guy he is.<\/p>\n
Ramirez is even taught how to make love like Carlos, something
\nhard to come to terms with considering the good family man he is,
\nwith a beautiful wife and children who should not be forgotten.<\/p>\n
At one point, Ramirez is given LSD and this is when he manages
\nto work up his demons and venture deep into the abyss of Carlos'
\nsoul.<\/p>\n
In the movie's best scene, the young director Duguay weaves
\nsome magic, using a high-tech motion control camera to reach
\ninside the divided mind of a man posing as a killer.<\/p>\n
After this preparation, the movie is off and running.<\/p>\n
It is either Quinn with his baby-blue eyes as the good guy
\nturned brute or, with brown contact lenses, as the simply rotten
\nbad seed, chasing women, agents and himself, from Paris to St.
\nMartin to Libya and finally to East Berlin, where Quinn ends up
\nstrangling Quinn. Face\/Off anyone?<\/p>\n
Hollywood has never found a lead role for Aidan Quinn -- last
\nseen in these parts in Legends of the Fall -- but the Canadian
\nproducers gave him quite a workout.<\/p>\n
As the heavy-handed Carlos, he rises to the occasion as the
\ntortured Ramirez who can never return to what he once was.<\/p>\n
This is essentially, a low-budget Canadian film, which may
\nexplain its subdued tone, its lack of obsession with political
\ncorrectness and why so much time is spent away from the action.<\/p>\n
It actually feels like an old-fashioned international
\nespionage flick, where the first and third acts are more
\nimportant than the suspense itself.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/aidan-quinn-on-target-as-lead-in-the-assignment-1447893297",
"image": ""
},
"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}