The Assignment

Plot synopsis:
The film opens to the sounds of a couple having sex. Afterwards, Carlos the Jackal (Aidan Quinn) kills a spider in its web with his cigarette and evicts the woman(Lucie Laurier) from his room because he claims he has work to do. He is seen donning a disguise, and he walks to a cafe where CIA agent Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) is sitting at a table outdoors. He recognizes Shaw and asks for a light. Shaw does not recognize Carlos, because of his disguise, but he turns to watch Carlos enter the cafe. He watches as Carlos detonates a grenade, killing dozens of people.The film shows an event of attacking the OPEC meeting by the Jackal and his fellows in 1975.In the present day, Carlos is apprehended in an open air market and brutally interrogated by a Mossad commander named Amos (Ben Kingsley). Carlos claims to actually be a US Naval officer named Annibal Ramirez whose identification was lost in the chaos of his arrest. Amos confirms his identity and lets him go, stunned that Ramirez looks exactly like Carlos. Back at home, Ramirez is visited by Shaw who tries to recruit him to play Carlos' double. Ramirez is so embittered by his rough treatment in Amos' hands, that he insists he will sue and flatly rejects the idea of portraying Carlos. Shaw persists, wooing Ramirez on several occasions. He finally convinces Ramirez by showing him a child in a hospital who he claims is a victim of one of Carlos' bombings.Amos and Shaw train Ramirez at a remote location. Much of his training is devoted to situational awareness and internalizing details of Carlos' life. His training concludes with one of Carlos' ex-mistresses training Ramirez in how to make love like Carlos. The plan to catch Carlos revolves around convincing the KGB, which supports much of his terrorism, that he has begun to work with the CIA. The team lures one of Carlos' girlfriends to Libya, where Ramirez meets up with her, successfully posing as Carlos, even during their lovemaking. The girlfriend has become an informant for the French, however. Several French agents arrive at their apartment, and Ramirez is forced to kill them to survive. He is horrified at having to kill allies in his undercover operation.Carlos sends an assassin to kill the girlfriend in France, ordering him to leave Europe through London. The assassin happens to be in Heathrow airport at the same time as Ramirez, and he quickly realizes he is an impostor after Ramirez doesn't recognize him. The assassin forces Ramirez into a bathroom and a struggle ensues. Amos rushes in and manages to kill the assassin before being fatally shot. After Amos' death, the CIA shuts down the mission and Ramirez returns home.Back with his wife, he makes love to her as Carlos would, and she is disturbed by the change in his personality. The next day, at his son's little league game, he gets into a confrontation with another father and nearly kills him. Shaw bails him out of jail, and both men are clearly suffering deeply by not being able to finish their mission and kill Carlos.They head to East Berlin and conspicuously meet with each other. The KGB sees Ramirez meeting with Shaw and assumes Carlos has turned on them. They raid his hotel, but as they try to arrest them, he escapes. Shaw and Ramirez are waiting outside the hotel for him, and Ramirez fights Carlos on the bank of a river. It's impossible to tell which is the real Carlos during the struggle. As one of the men is being held under water by the other, Shaw comes upon them and shoots the man above the water several times. He realizes that he has shot Ramirez, and Carlos swims away. Ramirez presses Shaw to leave him and chase Carlos, but Shaw insists that their plan has worked and Carlos is a marked man by the KGB. One way or another, Shaw points out that Carlos' days as a terrorist are over.The deaths of Ramirez and his family are staged by Shaw, and in the final scene, the family are safely cavorting on a beach. Ramirez moves to kill a spider in its web with his cigarette, but appears to change his mind.

Tags: revenge, murder, violence

Review:
"The Assignment" received barely any attention upon it's release and not surprisingly flopped at the box-office, but when history will be written this movie will most surely receive some long lost praise.Thank God I'm surrounded by friends who knows what's good for me.
This was about 3 years ago and the movie is still one of my proudest belongings in my DVD collection, despite a cover design that echoes a low budget stinker with Casper Van Dien."The Assignment" is expertly directed, delivering some really intense moments that will hold you on the edge of your seat throughout the movie, on top of that it boasts an at times brilliant story that you know will be riddled with unexpected twists and turns.
It stars Aidan Quinn in one of his best performances, and serves him with great support by Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley who are both in great form.Something like 40 out of 42 user comments like this movie, most of them can't seem to praise it enough.
It's intelligently made and brilliantly filmed, and is one of the few thrillers that creates complex, interesting characters and makes the movie about them, not the action.
It has action, but not this bullet-flying, good guys - bad guys, van damme - stallone action, but quick, realistic and nervous action, it has a plot, cause till the very end of the movie you don't know how this is gonna end, it has characters, aidan quinn, donald sutherland and ben kingsley are just perfect, and it has suspense, this movie just won't let you go away before you've seen the end of it.Though there are only a few characters, I didn't find it difficult to keep my attention the the story, and as for the story, it's basic (not too tom clancy-difficult, but simple and raw) and realistic.If you're in for a movie with a good story, some action and great acting, watch this and I promise, you won't go away till you've seen the end of it.
It's a perfect set-up for a franchise, (sorry to sound like an executive at some lumbering movie studio) because I'd be completely interested to see the next adventures of these well rounded characters - and the actors that play them.
Determined to nail a feared global terrorist who is known as "Carlos the Jackal", Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland, "Without Limits", "Space Cowboys"), a CIA operative and his Israeli counterpart, Amos (Ben Kingsley, "Gandhi", "Sexy Beast") get a noble Naval officer, Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn, "Music of the Heart"), to become Carlos and use him in a daring plot to get the KGB to kill the real Carlos, because he took an offer from the CIA.
Sutherland and Kingsley are both good here, but the movie really belongs to Quinn here, who embodies himself here (in a dual role).
If you liked the Richard Chamberlain version of the Bourne Identity then you will like this too...Aiden Quinn does this one brilliantly, you can't help but wonder if he is really out there...I reckon he and the other main cast members probably had nightmares for weeks after doing this movie as it's so intense.
"The Assignment" had the essential plot of "The Bourne Identity" (the book by Robert Ludlum, not the movie starring Matt Damon) and the themes "Face/Off" only touched on.THE PROS:THE SCRIPT--this movie was co-written by a former agent with the Israeli Mossad (Israel's version of the CIA), so "The Assignment" had an aura of realism that most Hollywood thrillers lack.
There's a dazzling sustained steadicam shot, then a scene of such brutal terrorism it's easy to see why CIA agent Jack Shaw becomes bent on destroying Carlos the Jackal.THE TRAINING SCENES--I've seen tons of action movies.
But even if the action scenes sucked (which they don't) they would still be gripping because of the engrossing story.THE THEMES--the themes made this, already a good movie, a great one.
He was so cool and badass, I wanted to see more!THE SEXUAL CONTENT--actually I thought this was a good thing, because that damnable PG-13 rating makes it seem like people in movies don't have sex.
This movie however, centers on the C.I.A.'s world manhunt for the infamous 'Carlos, the Jackel.' The film is called " The Assignment " and tells the story Lt. Cmdr.
Recruited by Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) of the C.I.A. and Amos (Ben Kingsley), a special agent from the Israeli Mosad, Ramirez is secretly trained to look, pose, infiltrate the elusive organization and to thereafter discredit the real Jackel working for the Russians.
However it is a much better film than it's big budget brother with better story and a more compelling sense of tension (and you don't have to put up with Richard Gere's wandering Irish accent).Aidan Quinn is good in twin roles of Carlos and Ramirez, in particular portraying the way Ramirez changes during his training.
Sutherland is as good as always - but in some scenes still has an element of hamminess about him, Kingsley is good but underused.The story is more believable than The Jackal (if you can get past the fact that Carlos has an exact double!) with plot to get Carlos being more intelligence and espionage based than the gunplay solution of The Jackal.
There are only a few action scenes in the film but again are all tense, the scenes of terrorist attack are frightening but tend to linger of shots of extras with bad blood makeup (some horrors are more terrible if left to the viewers' imagination).Overall, a tight little thriller that makes up in plot and acting what it lacks in star-power and budget..
The film has a great cast, starring Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley.Naval Officer Quinn is a reluctantly recruited by Sutherland after a chance meeting with Kingsley who believes Quinn to be the famous terrorist Carlos the Jackal.
He even has to learn how to make love to a woman the way Carlos would.The film has some great action scenes with Quinn eluding allies because they believe he is Carlos and in his final mission when he is to kill the jackal.
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.
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.
This movie is about Carlos "The Jackal" (Quinn), an international terrorist who, by CIA agent Henry Fields's (Sutherland) description, appears to maim women and children for the heck of it.
At least that's what he says to guilt US Naval Officer Annibal Ramirez (Quinn again) into taking on the assignment of posing as Carlos and setting him up as a traitor in the eyes of the KGB.
He is borne of order and Carlos is borne of chaos.The movie isn't all shoot-gun-jump-around action, and that's a good thing.
In its first half, Ramirez undergoes training to act and think like Carlos, and that's actually where the movie achieves its distinction from other run-of-the-mill action flicks.
It's a little contrived but Quinn gives a riveting performance as a Carlos-wannabe.Another thing I liked about this movie was that it didn't utilize the much overdone plot point in evil twin movies - you know, the one in which the evil twin insinuates himself into the good twin's family.
Ramirez's family does come into the picture, but instead they highlight how his new character wrecks havoc on his family life.Good chuckle humor is injected into this movie, often coming the acerbic duo of Sutherland and Kingsley.
This is the classic case of an excellent film being looked over by the American public simply due to the fact it didn't have Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenneger as the lead man - Adrian Quinn does a better dual performance, thats right you heard it dual performance in this film than either of those  have ever pulled off in their careers!
In this adaptation, a US Naval officer (Adrian Quinn) is on leave in Israel when he is apprehended by Mossad (Isreal's crack intelligence / counter-terrorism agency) and took in for questioning due to the fact he looks EXACTLY like the jackal (this is the one extremely cheesey part of the film, but trust me it doesn't detract from the great value of this film).
When it is discovered Mr. Ramirez is not the Jackal, however, he is recruited by a hardened CIA agent by the name of Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland, who does his usual grizzled mysterious government authority figure routine but in a stupendous manner) who has spent his life hunting the Jackal, and the series of events which follow will captivate anyone who watches this film - it is chock full of great acting, without all the usual action film cliches and one-liners, and a great plot which will surprise anyone.
The Assignment is better than anyone renting it could ever expect, its a pity the film did fairly poorly in the box office, otherwise we might see a sequel to this stupendous espionage thriller.
The only problem was that it was on a small screen at one of my local cinema's.That didn't stop the enjoyment of seeing a simply great movie, with a top notch cast in Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, and Ben Kingsley.
If you like some good, fast entertainment with an air for authentic action scenes, not the Hollywood (looks great, but is totally ridiculous) kind, you're in for a special treat.
While "The Jackal" [remake of the excellent "Day of the Jackal"] has better esthetics [and a boatload budget], this film nails the actual persona of "Carlos" down...Quinn excels as the Naval officer enlisted to impersonate the wiley Jackal to draw him out of hiding and, at the hands of Kingsley and Sutherland, turns himself inside out to do so.
Add a crazed agent(Donald Sutherland) who is looking for the worlds most notorious terrorist and add a Ben Kingsley and you have "The Assignment".
The opening sequence telegraphed to me that this was no ordinary action-thriller.When Carlos the 'jackal',bombs a Parisian cafe by nonchalantly walking in past Jack Shaw, a top C.I.A operative we are sucked into the ensuing maelstrom,of the explosion and its aftermath.Annibal Ramirez, a U.S. naval officer,is picked up in Israel by the Mossad.However the Mossad are convinced they have the 'Jackal'.But things are not what they seem.
Aidan Quinn, the Irish actor,plays a brilliant double role here with an equally strong supportive cast in Donald Sutherland as Shaw the C.I.A. man and Ben Kingsley as a Mossad officer.
Not only does Duguay the director portray Quinn as transforming his character but includes the negative traits Quinn picks up from his 'Assignment'.I highly recommend this movie to any espionage or thriller fans.You will not be disappointed.
Two great actors (Ben Kingsley, Donald Sutherland) and one really good one (Aidan Quinn) give superb performances in this tight as a string thriller involving spies, lies, and the one and only CARLOS.CIA man Jack Shaw (Sutherland) masterminds a plot to get Carlos, once and for all,  when he stumbles upon Annabel Ramirez (Quinn) a Navy officer and a dead ringer for the Jackal.Absolutely non-stop action and suspense, this thriller never telegraphs its punches, twisting and turning over and over.Highest recommendation..
Aidan Quinn stars with Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley in "The Assignment," a 1997 film directed by Christian Duguay.
There are a few things he and his trainers hadn't counted on...one is that as time goes by, Annibal finds it harder and harder to escape Carlos' identity and reclaim himself.Really good movie, very suspenseful and exciting, with a wonderful performance by Aidan Quinn as both Carlos and Annibal.
Some excellent effects, locations, and car chases.Quinn I seem to remember came to fame in a film about AIDS, "An Early Frost," and I also recall that Tina Sinatra was blown away by his bone structure and wanted him to play her dad in "Sinatra" The Music Was Just the Beginning." Movie stardom never really hit him, but he has had a prolific career playing a variety of roles, and is now a regular on "Elementary." In "The Assignment," he again reminds us of his excellence and versatility as an actor.
Donald Sutherland does a great job as Annibal's handler, Shaw, who wants Carlos not only for the CIA's reasons but also because in France, Carlos slipped by him at a restaurant and bombed it.Ben Kingsley, another fantastic actor, hands in his usual well thought-out performance as a Mossad agent.
Brilliant combination of Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland (always like his films)and Ben Kingsley.
None of them manage to pull off what they are meant to portray and the most enjoyable aspect were some of the nude scenes which should be a (brief) feast for the eye for both sexes alike.Sutherland's voice is great as always but the movie does not manage to put the viewer in touch with the real Carlos.Most disappointing is the yawning predictability (no surprises) of what is meant to be a spy thriller..
This amazing film was released the same year as the vastly inferior 1997 film "The Jackal", starring Bruce Willis, which was also about Carlos the Jackal - I think it was lost in the shuffle because of this.To start with, the ensemble is stellar, Adrian Quinn is perfectly cast in the dual lead as Carlos the Jackal and his Doppelganger, Annibal Ramirez.Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley also star as CIA and Mossad agents, respectively.
They must train and basically brainwash Ramirez into becoming Carlos the Jackal in order to catch him and this process becomes a fascinating subplot.Ramirez is conflicted with his role and his antagonism toward both Sutherland and Kingsley's characters makes for some great dialogue.
Terrorist Carlos the Jackal (Aidan Quinn) blows up a cafe and CIA agent Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) barely survives.
Shaw sees potential in using the doppelganger to trick the KGB who is supporting the real Carlos.This is part spy thriller, part action, part character study, and partly interesting.
Only this time it is the actual terrorist who is the center of attraction.A movie which tries hard to weave the elements of fact and fiction together but fails to do so convincingly.The story revolves around the life of a Naval Officer from the U.S. who as luck would have it, looks strikingly similar to The Jackal.With this the story moves on as various international intelligence agencies indulge in a game of cat and mouse to do their bit.With slightly type-cast acting and characterisation , not to mention the fantastically sketched out plot the movie somehow doesn't dissolve in the tummy.On the whole the movie has many bright spots in terms of the story and technical aspects but fails to come across as a superb thriller due to hastened plot progression and disproportionate reel allocation to relatively less important and insignificant features of the storyline..
Worse than Die Hard 3, about the same as The Bourne Identity.Who should see this film:-- action movie buffs, on a rainy day with nothing better to do-- Ben Kingsley fans (but see Death and the Maiden first)I'll give The Assignment an OK, nothing special 6 out of 10..
***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.
Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn) looks like the man in the photo.
and Jack Shaw, C.I.A (Donald Sutherland) wants him to set a trap.Ramirez becomes Carlos with the help of Shaw and Mossad agent Amos (Ben Kingsley).
This film is one of the better action thrillers as it is not a "star vehicle," but a great group of actors who create a believable story.And, I may add, gives us pause at the end..
It is well acted by Quinn in the dual role of hero and terrorist, Sutherland as a CIA agent, and Kingsley as an Israeli terrorism expert.
THE ASSIGNMENT (1997) **1/2Starring: Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, Ben Kingsley, Céline Bonnier, and Claudia Ferri Director: Christian Duguay   Running time:115 minutes   Rated R (for violence, language, sexuality & nudity) By Blake French: 	Christian Duguay's suspense thriller, "The Assignment," covers some very serious material--but at the same time offers one of the most stubbornly silly plots I have ever encountered in a mainstream film.
The film stars Aidan Quinn in a juicy dual role, playing a United States Naval Officer named Annibal Ramirez, and the antagonist, the mysterious and notorious but impossible to catch terrorist named Carlos.
It is rare that a second or third tier actor, such as Quinn, is given an important starring role like this that carries a film.
Donald Sutherland is great as the morally ambiguous, somewhat creepy at times, agent that recruits Quinn.
I agree with most peoples comments that this is a good all round action movie with a well told story and good acting.This film deserves 100% for cinematography for its opening sequence.
SPOILERS.Aidan Quinn is an upright naval officer recruited by CIA man Donald Sutherland and ex-Mossad agent Ben Kingsley to pose as Carlos (the Jackal) because, after all, Quinn is an exact duplicate of Carlos.
The general idea is to train Quinn the naval officer to think and act like Carlos the jackal.
The plot is not original (in fact, I saw other two movies about the terrorist called "The Jackal, which are very good, too).
Maybe, the most interesting character is played by Donald Sutherland: he plays the part of the CIA agent who trains and tells the protagonist to kill the Jackal even by blackmailing him.
All those who like realistic action movies and thrillers will surely enjoy "The assignment".