A Masterpiece!

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

How do you catch Carlos the Jackal? A Naval officer, CIA agent and a Mossad agent all work together to find out. See "Day of the Jackal" and "The Jackal" for alternative artistic impressions of the notorious terrorist, but see "The Assignment" for the best all around movie by far! The film is perhaps most notable for its harsh and honest look at the physical and mental training as well as personal sacrifices a spy must undertake in order to become "superhuman." Look out for the scene near Israel's Dead Sea where the hero undergoes special training... fantastic to see these exercises displayed in a film starring 3 great actors (in 4 roles) who compliment each other without overshadowing each other, maybe one of the best spy films of the 1990s!

***SPOILERS*** A bit overcomplicated and confusing spy thriller involving US Navy Lt. Commander Cuban born Annibal Ramirez, Adian Quinn, who's recruited with a little bit of arm twisting by the CIA and Israeli Mossad to play the part of Carlos the Jackel in that Annibal is the spitting image of the notorious assassin. Behind all this cloak and dagger stuff is Paris CIA Director Jack Shaw, Donald Southerland, who has it in Carlos for strictly personal reasons! That's when back in September 1974 Carlos, disguised as a 1960's type of hippie, slipped right through his fingers and ended up blowing up a Paris café with Shaw, who survived the blast, being in it!Shaw with the help of Mossad Agent Amos,Ben Kingley, teach Ramirez all about Carlos' quirks and habits as well as his style, rough to the point of almost killing his partner, of lovemaking and send him out to Libya in a plot to have him make his backers, the Soviet KGB, think that he's about to turn on them and join the other side": The USA and its Western allies! This all has Ramirez end up killing a number of French Secret Agents, who raided his love nest, who mistakenly think that he's Carlos. Carlos himself in thinking he's being set up has one of his henchman Japanese assassin Koj, Von Flores, travel to Paris to knock off his girlfriend Agnieska, Liliana Komorowaka, who mistook Ramirez for himself whom Carlos feels betrayed him to the French Secret Service. Ramirez together with Shaw and Amos who just happened to be in Paris at the time of Agnieska's murder is later confronted by Koj who realizes, by Ramirez not knowing the right code word, that he isn't Carlos who then takes him, with a gun pointed in his gut, to a airport mens-room in order to knock him off! It's then that Amos comes to Ramirez's rescue by not only taking out the surprised Koj but taking a bullet or two for him at the same time!***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Meamwhile the KGB smells a rat in Carlos in him suspected of working for American intelligence,the CIA, and raid his pad outside East Berlin in order to take him in for questioning. This lead to a free for all shootout at Carlos', who was buff naked at the time, love pad where he's later run down by Ramirez who together with his boss Shaw were outside watching the whole spectacle. With both Carlos & Ramirez slugging it out Shaw not knowing which is which ends up shooting and seriously wounding the wrong man, Ramirez, with Carlos, now with his clothes on, getting away! The film ends in a confusing note with Ramirez now fully recovered from his wounds back in the states reunited with his wife and young son and Carlos now a man not only without a country but wanted by his former employers the KGB who've got a 50 million dollar or ruble contract out on him. We've still got a big surprise coming at the end the movie that's not at all lacking in surprises but by the time it hits us were just too numb or punch-drunk,in all the surprises we've already seen, to both notice or appreciate it!

With an opening "hommaged" from "A Touch of Evil"I had high hopes of "The Assignment",but gradually they faded and I settled for "time passer".I lost track of when Aidan Quinn was playing a Naval Officer,a terrorist or a Naval Officer playing a terrorist.I couldn't see the point of the fairly graphic sex scenes - apart from the obvious one.We are told Quinn will have to learn how Carlos "makes love" to his mistresses - do we really need to see this being demonstrated at inordinate length? And why does it take so damn long to recruit him?We know he will take the job in the end for heaven's sake................... Having said that,there are some fun moments in this movie,mostly concerning uber ham Donald Sutherland alternately smiling,snarling and sneering at Quinn,sometimes within the same sentence.He isn't really trying but he still manages to dominate the movie. Ben Kingsley looks soulful,makes a few half - hearted Jewish quips just in case we forget he's in Mossad and takes a bullet for Quinn before dying with a half smile on his lips - a neat trick if you pull it off. None of the women have to do much apart from submitting to Mr Quinn in his various personae,which they do - it must be said - in different degrees of poor grace,the poor dears. For tackling a subject usually dealt with by blockbusters the producers are to be commended for refraining from budget - busting FX and concentrating more on character,it's just a pity the characters weren't a little bit more believable. In today's world awash with suicide bombers and electronic surveillance, old -style independent terrorists like Carlos are an endangered species,you knew where you were with his ilk - throw enough money at them and bob's your uncle.Now nobody seems to care whether they live or die the ball game has changed just a little bit.If I looked an awful lot like Osama bin Laden I might be afraid of being shot on sight but I don't think there'd be much point in Donald Sutherland trying to recruit me.

Once I knew that Donald Sutherland, (Jack Shaw/Henry Fields) was appearing in this film it instantly told me this was going to be a good picture to view. Most of Sutherland's pictures are full of action and suspense and he can play a rather cruel character and can also be quite charming and kind. In this picture, Jack Shaw did his very best to be a good guy and a bad guy while he was training a Naval Office to become a spy who had to change his entire identity and become a different person over night. There is plenty of car chase scenes and plenty of stunt men situations which I would not want to perform. This Naval Officer lived in a quite community with his wife and was a father, but you would never realize that fact until the film reveals his horrible background secrets which he had to keep from his family and friends. Good spy film and great acting by all the actors.