Movie Review : Assassins (1995)

Movies are something most couples have to figure out. Josie likes supernatural creatures and the Victorian era and I like psychological horror and worship  Sylvester Stallone, so movie night often equals compromises for us. Sometimes you have to get clever in order to get what you want, so I used Josie's love for hired guns movies in order to trick her into watching ASSASSINS, a classic Stallone film I had never watched. I was fortunate enough that it had quite a solid screenplay and Josie didn't end up killing me. A solid screenplay, a smart and understated direction and Sly Stallone, what more can a movie do to sway me, right?

Robert Rath (Sylvester Stallone) is the best hitman in the business. He's assigned the most high profile marks with the best payouts. Rath is trying to pull away from the business and take an early retirement when he's assigned the most lucrative case of his career. The only problem is that the younger, wilder and hungrier Miguel Bain (Antonio Banderas) is starting to cherry pick his contract and attempt on his life as often as he possibly can. When their employer hilariously sends them both after a floppy disk containing sensitive information and the information thief selling it (Julianne Moore), tension rise between the two killers and they clash over values and methods.

ASSASSINS was the first high profile project of Andy and Lana Wachowski, better known for directing the Matrix trilogy. They aren't directing this one, Richard Donner (from the Lethal Weapon legacy) is, but several different aspects of the movie bear their mark. The themes of technology controlling humans are all over this movie. Robert and Miguel both take their orders from a computer, handing contracts through a minimalist interface, they fight (and kill a ridiculous amount of people) for a freakin' floppy disc, which was serious business in 1995. Apparently, the script was almost completely rewritten by Hollywood veteran Brian Helgeland and the Wachowskis tried to remove their name from the project, but they could not remove their obsessions from it. It's how hard their legacy has hit Hollywood.

God bless you, Sylvester Stallone. You handsome glasses-wearing bastard.

What makes ASSASSINS such a rich and memorable movie, is that there are several iconic influences flowing through it. It's like a perfect storm. The Brian Helgeland and Richard Donner legacies can also be observed through the realistic, understated approach of the movie. The use of the soundtrack was particularly clever, I though. It heightens tense moment through a minimalist approach and gives the center stage to its talented leads. Speaking of which, my boy Stallone also leaves his imprint on that movie. It's one of the most serious, challenging movies of his career, but an agent of on-film chaos cannot run away from his true nature and both gruesome deaths and over-the-top violence follow him in ASSASSINS. There is a ridiculous gas explosion scene, among others, that is everything we love about Sylvester Stallone.

ASSASSINS is not your typical Sylvester Stallone movie though. It's a film where he is trying to fit it, rather than to kill and maim as many bad guys as he possibly can. As a result, it's not a movie that actually stands out, but it does all the small things right and ends up being more than the sum of its parts. It was written by a team of Hollywood legends, shot in a self-controlled, understated style that played lighting and sound to its advantage and it stars the most iconic action hero of all-time, as well as Antonio Banderas, who's interestingly enough the over-the-top guy here. I'd like to tell you Julianne Moore mattered in this movie, but she didn't. She was kind of a placeholder love interest. Who cares anyway? Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas are shooting at each other for two hours.