Assassins Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
Robert Rath is the best hitman around, but the code and sense of duty once part of his deadly career are lost in a post-Cold War world of free-lance guns. He wants out. Not so Miguel Bain, a driven killer who knows how to claim the top spot of his shadowy profession: eliminate Rath.
The Wachowski Brothers so disliked the film that producer Joel Silver and producer-director
Richard Donner made from their script for Assassins that they wanted their names removed from
the credits. The Writers Guild said no, which means that Andy and Larry (excuse me, "Lana")
remain featured in the film's titles along with Brian Helgeland, who was hired by Silver and
Donner to streamline the script into their kind of picture. Silver eventually made it up to the
Wachowskis by producing The Matrix, and they got their revenge when Assassins fizzled at the
box office -- even abroad where its star, Sylvester Stallone, is usually a reliable draw.
The Wachowski touch can still be discerned in the finished film, especially in certain thematic
elements, such as characters who are doppelgängers and action that plays out in a separate world
paralleling our own though largely unseen. But Silver and Donner were only interested in such
elements as plot devices for a thriller, not as constructs for a philosophical discourse. (Depending
on how you feel about the Wachowski oeuvre, that may be a good thing.) Donner was at the top
of his game then, and if you can accept the admittedly eccentric casting, Assassins is a diverting
and well-crafted entertainment.
"What kind of shoes will you be wearing when your day comes?" asks a bitter Ketcham (Muse
Watson), the latest victim of hitman Robert Rath (Stallone). It's the kind of question that's been
on Rath's mind lately. Something of a celebrity within the obscure fraternity of killers for hire,
Rath has lately grown weary of his profession. His doubts are only amplified by fulfilling the
contract on Ketcham, who is a fellow professional. This contract brings up bad memories.
Fifteen years ago, Rath accepted the toughest contract of his career, when he "retired" his best
friend and former partner, Nicolai Tashlinkov (played in black-and-white flashbacks by familiar
Russian actor Anatoli Davydov). Rath is haunted by the memory, in no small part because he has
"principles" -- a point that Ketcham bitterly throws in Rath's face in his final moments. These
principles are never spelled out in detail, but it appears that Rath won't kill "innocent" people.
His "marks" have to be criminals of some sort, people like Ketcham and Nicolai -- and Rath.
Rath's concerns multiply when his next target, a reclusive billionaire venturing out for his
brother's funeral (Donner regular Steve Kahan), is stolen out from under him by a flamboyant
new competitor, Miguel Bain (Antonio Banderas). An ambitious young turk who has studied
Rath's methods, Miguel appears unsuited for a job that requires discretion, because he enjoys his
work too much. Not only does he steal Rath's mark, but he also kills four cops and puts the
whole city on alert. By the time he and Rath finally meet up, their first priority is to avoid getting
caught.
Rath is ready to retire right then, but his contractor, an anonymous source he knows only as an
account on the internet, tempts him with an especially lucrative job: an information thief in
Seattle selling valuable data to European buyers. For terminating the thief and the buyers, plus
recovering the disk with the information, Rath will be paid $2 million.
Rath takes the contract, but it quickly turns out to be suspicious. The buyers aren't who they're
supposed to be, and neither is the seller, a hacker who calls herself Electra (Julianne Moore) and,
like Rath, has lived in the shadows for years. (She turns out to be a middleman who doesn't even
know what she's selling.) More importantly, Miguel Bain reappears, which can't be a
coincidence. Instead of "retiring" Electra, Rath offers an alliance, which Electra takes because
she doesn't exactly have a choice. The result is an elaborate game of cat and mouse across Seattle
with violent, sometimes explosive, results.
Looking to gain a tactical advantage, Rath devises a way to redirect the conflict to the unnamed
Carribean island where he and Nikolai had their final encounter. As he tells Electra, Miguel loves
history. He'll jump at the chance to replay the Rath/Nikolai encounter, with himself in the role
that Rath once occupied. But Rath, who was there the first time, knows more about the story than
Miguel ever could, and he can use that knowledge to change the outcome. It's a good plan -- in
theory.
For about the first half, Assassins plays like an action film, complete with elaborate car chases,
gunplay and a truly spectacular explosion. Director Donner, who had made three Lethal Weapon films by that point, is a master of such sequences, and he always did them for real and in camera,
with a minimum of effects trickery. By the second half, the film has switched gears to become a
kind of espionage thriller, with deception, maneuvering and double-dealing all around. (It's not
for nothing that both Rath and Miguel are devoted chess players.)
In the build-up to the film's finale, Rath sits patiently in air-conditioned comfort at the local
branch of the Banco Internacional, where he's awaiting a huge payoff, while Miguel swelters
across the street perched high atop a derelict hotel. Rath knows Miguel is there, because it's
where Rath sat when he shot Nikolai fifteen years ago as the Russian exited the very same bank.
Rath has a plan, but it depends on his outlasting Miguel, which he's sure he can do. The
sequence alternating between the two hired killers could easily be dull, but it's shot and edited so
well that it's anything but.
Films that mix genres need strong characters to hold the plot together, and the challenge of
Assassins is that all three leads are playing against the types for which they were known or for
which they would shortly become familiar. Robert Rath may be a professional killer, but he isn't
one of Stallone's typical men of action. He's reserved, rarely speaks above a murmur and hits
only one person (and then only once) in the entire film. It's a largely interior performance by an
actor who isn't noted for his skill at showing emotions through subtle changes of expression. But
Stallone pulls it off anyway. In this performance more than any other, he exploits the power of
stillness which, when used properly, is one of the most powerful tools of a film actor's craft. For
Rath, the weary professional trying to figure his way out of a situation spiraling further and
further beyond his control, watchful stillness is an intensely expressive state.
Stillness certainly helps to balance Banderas' quirky personification of Miguel Bain. The Spanish
heartthrob and future Zorro, who would appear the same year in Desperado as a man seeking
revenge for the death of his beloved, makes Miguel a psychotic puppy dog, all tics, twitches and
perpetual motion. As intently as Miguel desires to supplant Rath as "number one" among hit
men, it's hard to imagine him lasting long enough to achieve his goal, because he cannot
maintain a low profile. Everything he does attracts attention. Still, being brazen can take you a
long way, and Miguel is a dangerous adversary -- especially after his contractor (who also may be
Rath's contractor) sends him a contract on Rath. Miguel can barely contain himself when he
receives it.
Julianne Moore hadn't yet done the major roles that would establish her as a champion emoter
(with the exception of Short Cuts), but she was already displaying the emotional transparency
that would win her acclaim (and Oscar nominations) in films like Boogie Nights, The End of the Affair, The Hours and Far from Heaven. For Electra, she has to work against her natural gifts as an actress, because Electra has deliberately withdrawn from human relationships. "I need to be
alone", she tells Rath, after they've been together a few hours. "I haven't spent this much time
with somebody in years." ("Neither have I", say Rath, after she leaves.) Her only friend is her cat,
Pearl, a friendly long-hair, and it irks her no end that the faithless feline takes an instant liking to
Rath. Because the script tells us nothing about Electra's background, Moore has to convey the
sense that Electra has a history without being able to say what it is. She does it by the way Electra
studies Rath, evaluating what to make of him and whether she can trust him. Moore understands
the character well enough not to put any romantic element into Electra's treatment of Rath
(although a quick shot in the trailer suggests that the director might have tried it and wisely
abandoned it). Their relationship is based on money, as all good business partnerships should be.
If you know the Lethal Weapon films, the ending of Assassins should feel familiar. All I'll say
about it is that the song playing over the closing titles is a version of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling
Stone". I'll bet the Wachowskis really hated that.
The great Vilmos Zsigmond shot Assassins, and although Zsigmond is best know for his work on
anamorphic widescreen features like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he does equally
memorable work with spherical lenses, and Assassins is a good example. Whether lighting the
delicate chiaroscuro of Robert Rath's apartment, or the sunny heat of the Caribbean daytime, or
the cityscapes of Seattle and Portland in rain and sun, Zsigmond gave Assassins a rich textured look and a frame that's
always interesting.
The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from Warner provides a finely detailed image with
exceptional clarity, solid black levels and the right levels of color saturation to differentiate
among the differing environments. Grain is faintly visible but never intrusive, and I saw no
indication that it had been reduced by DNR or other filtering. Although I was initially concerned
that this 133-minute film had been compressed to fit on a BD-25, I did not spot any compression-related artifacts. It's likely that the saving grace was the relatively large number of scenes
involving two-person conversations, including some conducted through computer screens; these
are usually a gift to the compressionist
The film's theatrical 5.1 track, presented here in DTS lossless, is elegant but not showy. This
may the only film ever made in which large amounts of gunfire provide no opportunity for sound
designers to show off, because every shot is silenced. Instead, the sonic style is set in the opening
sequence, as Rath and Ketcham walk through a swamp. The sound of distant thunder rumbles
through the surrounds, panning left and right, along with the sound of a few birds. The focus
remains on the dialogue in front and Mark Mancina's mournful underscore. (Mancina was
reportedly called in at the last minute, when Donner rejected the score submitted by Michael
Kamen.) The surrounds provide the same kind of service throughout the rest of the film, whether
it's the passage of traffic during various chase scenes, or of trains during a key sequence on
Seattle mass transit, or pigeons in the plaza outside the Banco Internacional. Bass extension is
full but natural. The people may be strange, but the physical phenomena are normal.
I remember seeing an EPK-like promotional piece on HBO when Assassins was in theaters, and
it contained footage from the Puerto Rican location that doubled for the island where the film's
final act is set. It's unfortunate that Warner couldn't be troubled to include such existing
material, but then again the DVD of Assassins didn't even include the trailer.
Theatrical Trailer (SD; 1.85:1, enhanced; 2:42). It's a decent trailer for a film that's not
easy to categorize.
At over two hours, Assassins should feel like a long film, yet it never does, at least to me. But I
don't have a problem with any of the three leads in these roles, and the film is entirely about
them. If you don't like any of the three actors, or if you need to have Stallone punching out bad
guys, or Banderas being charming, or Moore in tears, then Assassins will have you shifting in
your seat and checking your watch. But if you're willing to let these actors do something
different, then Assassins is a slickly made, offbeat entertainment with a satisfying finale. The
Blu-ray's technical merits are above reproach and highly recommended.
Warner Home Video have revealed that they will release on Blu-ray four Sylvester Stallone films: Cobra (George P. Cosmatos, 1986), Demolition Man (Marco Brambilla, 1993), The Specialist (Luis Llosa, 1994), and Assassins (Richard Donner, 1995). At the moment, it ...
