Assassin's Bullet Blu-ray despite great video and audio falls short as a Blu-ray release
Agent Robert Diggs left his career in the FBI to escape the memories of his wife's death. However, when an unknown vigilante begins killing high-priority terrorists from America's Most Wanted list, the FBI and CIA request he take on the case.
Assassin's Bullet made a brief theatrical appearance in early August 2012 before being dumped
to video barely two weeks later, and it has the rare distinction of achieving a perfect zero at Rotten
Tomatoes. With thumbs unanimously pointed downward, it feels churlish to pile on, but I wasn't
able to see anything in Isaac Florentine's film other than a silly mess. Florentine makes the most
of the exotic setting in Sofia, Bulgaria—the film's original title, Sofia, was changed by its U.S.
distributors—but superficial gloss is all he provides. Then again, some viewers go for that sort of
thing.
The film's story originated with star Elika Portnoy, who is from Sofia but now lives in Boston,
where she models and generates her own film projects. In the included featurette about the
making of the film, Portnoy says that she needed two co-writers to give her story "structure",
which makes you wonder what the story looked like initially, because the labor of screenwriters
Nancy L. Babine and Hans Feuersinger created little more than a collage of espionage cliches—
part Alias, part La Femme Nikita, part The Manchurian Candidate. Just to name such precursors
is to be reminded of how far Assassin's Bullet falls short of whatever aim it might have had.
Watching actors of the caliber of Donald Sutherland and Timothy Spall being so badly wasted is
a painful experience. Either they thought they were signing up for something better, or they
wanted a paid vacation in Bulgaria.
It's hardly a spoiler to reveal that Portnoy plays three different roles in Assassin's Bullet, or that
they're all the same woman. Despite token gestures, the common identity isn't hidden from the
audience. The real question is the connection among the three personalities, and it's a question
that's never satisfactorily answered.
The first identity is Vicky, a mousy blonde school teacher married to a much older Bulgarian
diplomat, Mihail (Valentin Ganev). She teaches English to Bulgarian schoolchildren as part of a
successful ESL ("English as a Second Language") program sponsored by the American
Embassy and overseen by Robert Diggs (Christian Slater), a former FBI agent who is now in the
diplomatic service. Vicky also bears the psychological scars of a dimly remembered childhood
trauma that claimed the lives of her parents. For this, Vicky attends regular sessions with an
English psychiatrist, Dr. Kahn (Spall).
The second identity is a raven-haired assassin known only as the Killer. The Killer is a ghost with
the customary array of unbeatable skills with firearms, knives and martial arts. She receives her
instructions by encrypted text message or cell phone transmission and eliminates her targets
swiftly and without hesitation. Her standing order is "no witnesses".
Demonstrating that a working woman can have it all, the same body housing Vicky and the
Killer also has room (and time in the day) for a third identity, Ursula. A belly dancer with
flaming red hair, Ursula performs at Folk Club Versai, a lavish night spot where Dr. Kahn goes
to unwind after a hard day's work treating patients. Incredibly, the good doctor does not
recognize his regular patient when she's undulating directly in front of him in a green dress and
red wig.
Even more incredibly, neither does Dr. Kahn's friend, Robert Diggs, even though Diggs is
repeatedly described as an "exemplary" investigator when he used to work for the FBI. Diggs and
Dr. Kahn meet at Club Versai, although it's unclear why Diggs, to whom the locale is obviously
unfamiliar, is just now joining his old friend at what is clearly his regular hangout. In any case,
Diggs is immediately taken when he first sees Ursula but doesn't seem to recognize her as the
English teacher, Vicky, he met earlier the same day.
Then again, Diggs is one of those characters who is more plot function than person—or, in this
case, multiple plot functions. When necessary, Diggs is a man with a troubled past, having lost
his wife four years earlier to a murder in New York, which caused him to quit the FBI and retreat
to lightweight diplomatic work in Sofia. At times, Diggs still displays the crack investigative
instincts that made him a first-rate agent, allowing him to spot clues about the mysterious Killer
that the Bulgarian police have missed. But at other moments, the story requires him to be an
idiot, such as when he's transfixed by Ursula's face and figure to such a degree that he never
notices her resemblance to Vicky, or when he spots the distinctive tattoo on her lower back, but
seems to forget that Vicky has the same one in the same place. (Director Florentine goes out of
his way to show Diggs catching a glimpse of Vicky's ink.)
But what can you expect from writers who don't even bother with a credible explanation for how
Dr. Kahn, the Sofia-based shrink, and Diggs, the New York-based FBI man, became "old
friends"? And no, there's never any hint that Diggs was one of the doctor's patients.
Refusing to accept Diggs's objections that he has retired from field work, U.S. Ambassador
Ashdown (Sutherland) relays an order from Washington that Diggs is to begin investigating the
Killer's activities. The scenes between Diggs and Ashdown are the best part of the film, because
Ashdown is a car salesman who made major contributions to the President's campaign and was
rewarded with an ambassadorship. Donald Sutherland is clearly having fun playing Ashdown's
sleazy detachment as he tells Diggs that he's just a messenger, but can get Diggs a great deal on
new wheels when they return to the States.
The Killer has attracted the attention of U.S. intelligence by effectively reviving an abandoned
U.S. operation that had stalled, because U.S. authorities could never get close enough to certain
high-priority targets to take them down. Now the mysterious Killer is doing it for them. Who is
this operative, and how is he (or, as it happens, she) accomplishing these hits?
The "how" is never explained, because the source of the Killer's intel remains undisclosed, and
Diggs's investigation doesn't reveal much, because the film isn't really about him, despite his
substantial screen time. Assassin's Bullet is about the mysterious woman with multiple
personalities that may or may not have been deliberately engineered. The extent to which these
"multiples" communicate with each other remains unclear, but the filmmakers don't care either
way. They're more interested in choreographing scenes of elaborate mayhem, which are no more
involving than watching someone else play a video game, because there's no investment in the
outcome (as in, e.g., a Bourne film or La Femme Nikita). By the end you just shrug and ask
yourself, "What was that about?"
Assassin's Bullet is yet another in the growing canon of films "shot on Red". The
cinematographer was Australian DP Ross W. Clarkson, who shot Undisputed II and III for
director Florentine. The 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from ARC Entertainment, which was
presumably sourced from digital files, provides a richly detailed and sharp but not harshly digital
image, with the superior depth and shadow detail that is typical of Red-originated projects. The
color palette has been adjusted in post-production according to the female identity whose
presence, on-screen or off, most influences the scene. The Killer brings blues and other cool
tones to the fore; Ursula brings golds, reds and other warm elements, which are strongly
saturated without bleeding; and Vicky's presence usually dulls the colors to something bland and
less saturated. Blacks are strong and well-differentiated, and contrast is never cranked too high,
except in flashback and dream sequences, where the image has been deliberately distorted for
effect.
Material shot on Red generally compresses well, and since the total amount of footage on the
disc amounts to no more than two hours, a BD-25 is sufficient to accommodate it without
compression errors.
The film's DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is active and immersive from the opening moments, when the
sounds of Vicky's memories fill the surrounds. The surrounds are active throughout most of the
film, whether filling in the ambiance of the city environment, the boisterous Club Versai or the
controlled chaos of the Killer's assaults. However, the mixing philosophy isn't the kind that puts
dialogue or foley effects noticeably to the left or right, distracting attention away from the screen.
The surrounds blend seamlessly with the front speaker array (assuming your system is properly
calibrated) to create a general sonic presence, which gains greater impact by the occasional boost
of LFE. Dialogue is always intelligible (though not always helpful), and the serviceable score by
Simon Stevens, a relative newcomer, sounds about as good as it can, given its impossible task of
bridging the film's constantly shifting moods and points of view.
Behind the Scenes in Sofia: The Making of Assassin's Bullet (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1;
20:14): Featuring interviews with Slater, Spall and Portnoy, this featurette focuses
primarily on the mechanics of making the film, with only superficial discussion of the
plot. Substantial on-set footage is included.
Theatrical Trailer (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1; 1:47): To the extent there's anything at all to
give away, this trailer does so.
Additional Trailers: At startup the disc plays trailers (in HD) for 96 Minutes, Age of the
Dragons and Blood Money. These can be
skipped with the chapter forward button and are
not otherwise available once the disc loads.
