Assassins

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, Julianne Moore
Directed by: Richard Donner
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Thriller
1995

Times Seen:
Tim: 3

Summary: Robert Rath (Sylvester Stallone) is the best professional assassin alive. This causes Miguel Bain (Antonio Banderas), a talented assassin to compete with Rath for his targets- and, when Rath decides to help a woman (Julianne Moore) marked for assassination, decides to knock off Rath and become the best in the business.

Review:

Tim: Assassins is a movie that is just way too easy to criticize. I understand why critics and viewers were determined to pick it apart, but I really don't care. This might be a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure it certainly is. This is an entertaining, exciting, shoot 'em up thriller that provides a number of excellent sequences and really works. This might be a flawed movie, but that is easily overlooked because it also happen to be a great move.

The cast are all quite good. Sylvester Stallone has made some bad movies in his career, but he's also made some great ones. He is a talented actor, and he is in superb form here. Robert Rath is a great character, and Stallone brings him to life perfectly. Rath is a tired, world weary assassin who has seen and experienced it all. Stallone is ideal for this role, and this is one of my favorite Stallone performances. He is terrific here. Antonio Banderas is likewise ideal for his part. He is entertaining, funny, and just scary enough to make him believable as the bad guy. Banderas obviously has fun with the role, and the energy he brings is contagious to the film. I also love the opportunity to see a movie pitted Stallone v. Banderas. That is exciting, and one of the major reasons this movie works- we have these two very good actors going head to head against each other. Rounding out the cast is Julianne Moore, giving a believable, strong performance. She brings some much needed feminism and softness to the film, but is quite gutsy and strong in her own sense. She is very enjoyable on screen, and works very well with Stallone. Moore is typically pretty strong, and she works well in this big budget action film.

As with most great action movies, this one has some very memorable scenes. The Stallone-Banderas cab sequence is excellent. I also loved the long Puerto Rico bank scene near the end. One of my favorite moments is the "Happy Birthday" line Stallone delivers in Moore's apartment. This movie features some great scenes. Now, I also admit that there are some flaws. This movie does require a certain suspension of disbelief, and a willingness to sit back and enjoy the ride without questioning anything too intently. If you can do that, though, you'll find an intelligent, above average action thriller.

Assassins is a movie that is easy to hate on. However, despite all this, I really enjoyed the movie. It was thrilling, exciting, and best of all, fun. Yes, it could have been 15 minutes shorter, but I really had a great time watching this movie, and it remains one of my overlooked and underrated gems.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 8



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Demolition Man, Rambo, First Blood, Rocky, The Specialist, Daylight, Judge Dredd