the assignment movie review

The Assignment

“The Assignment” is a canny, tricky thriller that could serve as an illustration of what this week’s similar release, “The Peacemaker,” is not. Both films involve an international hunt for a dangerous terrorist, but “The Peacemaker” is a cartoon and “The Assignment” is intelligent and gripping–and it has a third act! Instead of an action orgy, it has more than enough story to see it through to the end and keep us absorbed the whole way. Yes, it ends with a deadly struggle, but as the setting for another stage of the movie’s web of deceit.

The film is centered on a CIA plot to discredit and kill Carlos, the feared terrorist who operated for years, despite the best efforts of the free world’s security agencies to capture him. Donald Sutherland plays Fields, the CIA agent for whom Carlos has become an obsession, and when he finds a U.S. Navy officer named Ramirez ( Aidan Quinn ) who’s a dead-ringer for the terrorist, he devises a risky scheme: He’ll train Ramirez to impersonate Carlos, then use the double to convince the KGB that their attack dog is disloyal. As a result, Carlos will either be dead or, almost as good, discredited in the eyes of his sponsors.

Fields works with an Israeli named Amos ( Ben Kingsley ) in training Ramirez, after first using psychological tactics to persuade the reluctant Navy man to leave his wife and family and become a counter-terrorist. (The scene where Fields shows Ramirez a dying child in a hospital is a direct echo of “ The Third Man “.) Then the false Carlos, is sent into the field to work the deception, which I will not describe.

“The Assignment” is fascinating because its characters can be believed, because there is at least a tiny nugget of truth in the story, and because from the deceptive opening credits, this is a film that creates the right world for these characters to inhabit. Sutherland’s CIA man is especially well drawn: “I don’t have any family,” he says, “and I don’t have any friends. The only people I’ve ever cared about were the ones I’ve killed.” Quinn plays a dual role, as Ramirez and Carlos, and has some tricky scenes, especially one in which a former lover of Carlos helps train him sexually so that he will be a convincing bedmate for another of the terrorist’s lovers.

The screenplay, by Dan Gordon and Sabi H. Shabtai , has action scenes that grow from the story and are not simply set pieces for their own sake. It’s impressive the way so many different story threads come together all at once near the end.

The director, Christian Duguay , is new to me. What he has is a tactile love of film, of images. He and the cinematographer, David Franco, don’t use locations so much as occupy them; we visit Jerusalem, Paris, Vienna, Washington, Tripoli and Moscow (or sets and effects that look like them) and yet the movie’s not a travelogue but a story hurtling ahead.

I have seen so many lazy thrillers. They share the same characteristics: Most of the scenes involve the overpriced star, the villain is underwritten, and the plot is merely a set-up for the special effects, the chases and the final action climax. “The Assignment” gives us ensemble work by fine actors, it has a villain of great complexity (developed through the process of imitating him), and at the end there is a tantalizing situation for us to unravel as we leave the theater.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Claudia Ferri as Maura Ramirez
Aidan Quinn as Annibal Ramirez/Carlos
Ben Kingsley as Amos
Celine Bonnier as Carla

Directed by

Christian Duguay
Sabi H. Shabtai

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Review: In The Assignment, Michelle Rodriguez Is a Hitman Caught Between Worlds

Review: In The Assignment , Michelle Rodriguez Is a Hitman Caught Between Worlds

W riter-producer-director and pulp maestro Walter Hill has been rattling cages and delivering quality thrills since the early 1970s. He made his directorial debut with Hard Times (1975), a scrappy, bruising drama starring Charles Bronson as a Depression-era bare-knuckles boxer. He’s also the guy behind the New York City street-gang extravaganza The Warriors (1979), the stolen-gold nail biter Trespass (1992) and The Driver (1978), with Ryan O’Neal, the ruminative getaway drama that helped inspire Edgar Wright’s upcoming car-chase musical Baby Driver .

Hill has influenced plenty of filmmakers—not just Wright, but also Michael Mann and Quentin Tarantino, to name just a few—though he hasn’t been particularly prolific as a director in recent years. His new film, The Assignment, isn’t likely to win him any new friends: Michelle Rodriguez stars as killer-for-hire Frank Kitchen, whose life is upended when he’s captured and knocked out by a gang of baddies, only to wake up wrapped in bandages—and a woman. The surgeon genius behind this transformation is steely-cool Dr. Rachel Kay ( Sigourney Weaver ), a straitjacketed jailbird who tells her own story to an earnest prison shrink played by Tony Shalhoub. Between Dr. Kay’s calculating testimony and and Frank’s sometimes anguished first-person account, delivered in voice-over, we piece together exactly what happened to Frank and how he/she went about wreaking revenge.

Not all of Hill’s movies are great, and The Assignment certainly isn’t. Maybe, in the strictest terms, it isn’t even any good. But even a mediocre Walter Hill film has more style and energy—and a finer sense of the sweet spot between joy and despair—than ninety percent of the action thrillers that get made today. Considering its over-the-top plot mechanics, The Assignment isn’t quite as nutso and passionate as it ought to be. Even the violence, gritty at times, feels a little impersonal and detached. But the film’s tawdry precision is compelling by itself.

In the opening sequence, we see a face in profile, almost entirely obscured by gauze, as a throaty voice launches into a preamble: “I killed a lot of guys…” Before we meet the teller of the tale—as a she, she doesn’t even have a name—we meet the man she used to be. Frank is a Casanova with piercing eyes and soot-black facial hair that could have been lifted from a 1960s dime-store toy, the one where you use a magnetic stylus to arrange piles of metal shavings, encased in a blister-pack bubble, into outlandish beards and sideburns for a cartoon man’s face.

In other words, it looks fake. But even the exaggerated macho-ness of that hair may be a kind of intentional overstatement. Frank goes out and picks up a young woman, Johnnie (Caitlin Gerard). They have hot, rowdy sex, and Johnnie suggests she might like to see Frank again. He’s positioned, perfectly, to be the quintessential clueless, oafish guy who never calls again.

But Frank does call Johnnie again—only he does so after he’s no longer Frank, after his previous identity, with all its he-man hallmarks, has been quite literally cut away. Rodriguez gives a smart, sharp performance here. She’s playing a character that is, almost literally, a cartoon. Every once in a while, Hill freezes a frame and transforms the image into a literal comic-book panel, a way of reminding that we’re watching something beyond reality (and a device he used in his own cut of The Warriors years ago, before it became commonplace). But as Rodriguez plays them, her character’s anguish and confusion are hardly cartoony.

She’s lost in her new identity, but the problem is less that she’s adjusting to being a woman than that she’s learning new things about being human. She adopts a pit-bull named Poncho. He’s as tender-tough as she is, as unsure exactly how he should act or what he should be. Rodriguez has the face of someone who’s just feeling her way along. Everything is a new puzzle, but there are pleasant surprises too. When her face registers relief or pleasure, it’s like the sun elbowing a thundercloud out of the way.

When The Assignment played at the Toronto Film Festival last fall—at that time, it was called (re)Assignment, a much better title, though its earlier working title, Tomboy, was perhaps best of all—it drew criticism for being insensitive toward, or at least cavalier about, transgender issues. But even if you discount the fact that films aren’t required to be public service announcements—in fact, they’re usually pretty bad when they are—the ideas behind The Assignment are more complex than they might seem on the surface. Many of them are also pure Walter Hill: The script was written by journalist, novelist and screenwriter Denis Hamill more than 30 years ago, and it borrows pulp elements of previous Hill films like Johnny Handsome (1989), in which Mickey Rourke plays a deformed gangster whose face is transformed by plastic surgery.

In Hill’s movies, men make mistakes right and left, and suffer for them. In The Assignment, Frank doesn’t choose to become a woman, and he desperately wants not to be one. But what if his enforced rebirth represents a second chance, a chance to be better? That’s one of the ideas The Assignment, in its sometimes awkward way, flirts with. It also crawls through the dust toward another cruel reality: Maybe it takes a woman who used to be a man to understand just how much of a man’s world this really is.

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Review: Seeking Revenge for ‘The Assignment’ She Didn’t Want

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By Glenn Kenny

April 5, 2017

Walter Hill is a smart veteran genre filmmaker (“48 Hrs.,” “Southern Comfort,” “Last Man Standing”) who’s never been above a little lurid sensationalism. But using forced gender-reassignment surgery as a major plot hinge for his latest movie, “The Assignment,” is arguably a miscalculated provocation.

In a story built on multiple flashbacks and flash forwards, the viewer learns of a hired killer named Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez) who is abducted and made into a woman by a mad, disgraced plastic surgeon whose brother was killed by Frank. This is not as novel a hook as it might initially sound: At times, Mr. Hill’s movie, which he wrote with the longtime journalist Denis Hamill, plays like an EC Comics mutation of Pedro Almodóvar’s 2011 film, “The Skin I Live In.”

“The Assignment” is not overtly transphobic , as such, though I’d stand down to anyone calling it insensitive. (It’s been criticized by Glaad and other gay, bisexual and transgender groups.) But male-gaze presumptuousness is only its most immediate glaring problem. The tricksy structure doesn’t have much of a payoff (even though Mr. Hill constructs sequences with deft fluidity). And the role of the surgically altered assassin defeats poor Ms. Rodriguez. Utterly recognizable behind a fake beard during her scenes as a man, she signals her post-surgery confoundedness by making like Marlon Brando in “The Wild One” or “On the Waterfront.” (Sigourney Weaver has a better, easier time of it as the haughty surgeon.)

Because Mr. Hill is still, in most respects, Mr. Hill, a lot of the movie is more watchable than it has a right to be. But ultimately, “The Assignment” ends up being ridiculous even by its own nonsensical standards.

Rated R for extreme violence, sexuality, nudity, drug use and, sure, language. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.

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Parents' guide to, the assignment.

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Common Sense Media Review

Violent thriller irresponsibly tackles transgender themes.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 18+?

Brutal shootings/killings. Blood sprays/spurts. Dead bodies. Kicking, beating. S

Full-frontal male and female nudity. Sex scene with thrusting (includes tearing

Frequent strong language includes "f--k," "f--king," "motherf--king," "bulls--t,

Secondary character snorts cocaine on-screen. Scenes of heavy drinking straight

Brands of hormone tablets Premarin and Prevara are mentioned and taken by a char

Any Positive Content?

Gender reassignment surgery is portrayed as an experiment and punishment perform

Main character Frank is a hired killer who commits violent acts and seeks reveng

Gender reassignment surgery, which can be life-affirming (if not life-saving) fo

Violence & Scariness

Brutal shootings/killings. Blood sprays/spurts. Dead bodies. Kicking, beating. Streaming blood. Bloody wounds. Brief images of surgery relating to non-consensual gender reassignment, with gory, bloody cotton/bandages. Hypo needle held to neck. Attempted sexual assault, followed by perpetrator being beaten to death with a baseball bat. Passing mention of death of father and brother. Reference to dog fighting and killing dogs.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Full-frontal male and female nudity. Sex scene with thrusting (includes tearing open condom wrapper). Woman in sexy underwear; there's mention of paying for sex, implying that she's a sex worker. References to "pimps" and "hookers."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent strong language includes "f--k," "f--king," "motherf--king," "bulls--t," "s--t," "s--thead," "t-ts," "ass," "a--hole," "bastard," "douchebag," "piss," "hell," "goddamn," and "idiot," as well as racial slurs ("chinky" and "Chinaman").

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Secondary character snorts cocaine on-screen. Scenes of heavy drinking straight from liquor bottles. Social drinking. Drugs shown, including hormone tablets taken by lead character.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Brands of hormone tablets Premarin and Prevara are mentioned and taken by a character.

Positive Messages

Gender reassignment surgery is portrayed as an experiment and punishment performed against someone's will. The film suggests that revenge can be warranted, offering satisfaction after trauma. However, glimpses of empathy can be found in the darkest of moments.

Positive Role Models

Main character Frank is a hired killer who commits violent acts and seeks revenge after being the victim of non-consensual gender-reassignment surgery. Frank generally shows little regard for others' lives but does have a strong determination to survive and extends empathy toward a dog and a character he has grown to care for, despite her double-crossing behavior. Dr. Rachel Jane puts scientific discovery before others' suffering, cruelly experimenting on unhoused people. She's arrogant and vengeful and shows no remorse for her actions.

Diverse Representations

Gender reassignment surgery, which can be life-affirming (if not life-saving) for individuals, is portrayed here as non-consensual and experimental, used as a punishment. Frank tries to get his surgery reversed, saying he thought it's what he wanted, which plays into damaging narratives about people changing their minds about surgery. Pre-surgery Frank is played by cisgender female actor Michelle Rodriguez in a mustache, beard, and chest plate, and she puts on a deep voice. Post-surgery Frank has a relationship with a woman; during sex, he says "I'll do what I can," implying that intimacy between two female bodies is somehow lesser than heterosexual sex. Offensive moments include a male doctor asking a female doctor whether she commits crimes because she didn't have a good sex life. Female bodies are sexualized, including Frank using his naked breasts to distract other men. A psychiatric hospital is referred to as the "nut house." Racist language is used toward a Chinese character, including "chinky" and "Chinaman." There's some ethnic diversity within the cast -- Rodriguez is Dominican-Puerto Rican and there are actors of Chinese and Middle Eastern descent in supporting roles.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Parents need to know that The Assignment is an action/thriller with an irresponsibly handled topic at its core: The main character, an assassin, is given gender reassignment surgery against his will, changing his body from male to female. The content is extremely mature, including graphic nudity (male and female full frontal), bloody shootings, beatings, and killings, and brief but semi-graphic sex scenes. Language includes "f--k," "s--t," and "a--hole," plus racist terms like "chinky" and "Chinaman." Characters use drugs, including cocaine, and the main character occasionally drinks alcohol (sometimes too much). Due to the mature (and badly handled) themes and violent and sexual content, the movie is appropriate only for older teens and adults. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In THE ASSIGNMENT, a prickly, Shakespeare-and-Poe-quoting surgeon, Dr. Rachel Kay ( Sigourney Weaver ), lives in a psychiatric hospital and is interviewed by Dr. Ralph Galen ( Tony Shalhoub ). She tells her story in flashback. Her brother, in trouble with gangsters, becomes the target of an assassin named Frank Kitchen ( Michelle Rodriguez ). Dr. Kay subsequently kidnaps Frank and performs non-consensual gender reassignment surgery on him as revenge. And so Kitchen awakens in a female body, and, after searching for a way to reverse the procedure (and failing), decides to get his revenge on everyone connected to Dr. Kay -- all the way up to dangerous, well-protected gangster "Honest John" ( Anthony LaPaglia ).

Is It Any Good?

This thriller starts out with a ludicrous and irresponsibly handled idea. Even directed in a pulpy, creative way by Walter Hill (who worked with Weaver on Alien as producer and is best-known for directing action classics like The Warriors and 48 Hrs. ), The Assignment struggles to escape its misguided premise. Certainly the film is inauthentic, casting cisgender female actor Rodriguez to play both pre- and post-surgery versions of a male character. And though The Assignment tries to praise trans people for their courage, its portrayal of gender reassignment surgery as a punishment plays into damaging narratives. When real-life discrimination against trans people is a huge problem in society, it makes it difficult to concentrate on the movie's redeeming features.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Assignment 's violence . Does it feel gratuitous or necessary? What impact does the pulpy nature of the filmmaking have? Does associating it with comic book violence change how you view it?

The film centers on a character who has non-consensual gender reassignment surgery as a punishment. What message do you think this sends about surgery for transgender people? Why is it important to be conscious and careful about portrayals like this on-screen?

How does the movie portray drinking and drug use ? Does it make substance use seem enjoyable? Glamorous? Or does it seem sad/desperate? Are there consequences ?

Movie Details

In theaters : April 7, 2017
On DVD or streaming : June 6, 2017
Cast : Michelle Rodriguez , Sigourney Weaver , Tony Shalhoub
Director : Walter Hill
Inclusion Information : Female actors, Latino actors, Middle Eastern/North African actors
Studio : Saban Films
Genre : Action/Adventure
Run time : 95 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : graphic nudity, violence, sexuality, language and drug use
Last updated : September 27, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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‘the assignment’: film review | tiff 2016.

Sigourney Weaver stars as a twisted surgeon and Michelle Rodriguez as the man she turns into a woman in Walter Hill's '(Re)Assignment.'

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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A demented pulp fiction about a brilliant surgeon who creates a Frankenstein monster by performing a sex change on the scumbag assassin who killed her brother, The Assignment (previously titled (Re)Assignment ) is, by any objective standard, a disreputable slice of bloody sleaze. But there’s also no question that veteran director and co-writer Walter Hill knows exactly what he’s doing here, wading waist-deep into Frank Miller Sin City territory and using genre tropes to explore some provocatively, even outrageously transgressive propositions. For longtime fans of the filmmaker, this Canadian-made low-budget revenge yarn will be embraced as Hill’s most entertaining and, on the terms it sets for itself, accomplished film in some time. It’s an instant cult item.

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Walter Hill

Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub, Caitlin Gerard, Anthony LaPaglia, Terry Chen

1:35

4/7/17 (limited)

| April 6, 2017

, which features a shadowy hitman being forced to undergo sex-reassignment surgery as a form of revenge for one of his many killings. It's almost too easy to read too much into this setup—transsexuality as a punishment, no attempt to understand the realities of transgenderism, the notion that female is inherently the weaker or more docile sex/gender (since the villain's hypothesis is that the hitman will redeem himself by living as a woman). It is, as the kids these days say, "problematic," and surely theses could be written on any or all of these problems with the premise.

, I can say that its biggest sin isn't cultural, political, or anything of that nature. No, the biggest problem is that it's dull. The screenplay by Denis Hamill and director Walter Hill takes a controversial premise—for better or for worse—and turns it into a lifeless slog of exposition-heavy dialogue and bland action. The worst the villain does here is (obviously) kept off screen. Her most significant threat is boring someone to death with back story, philosophical musings, and selective quotes from famous writers.

definitely doesn't go for it as a subversive, backwards, compassionate, or thoughtful exploration of gender identity. I guess that leaves us with the second option.

"I take orders from the Octoboss."

The Assignment

Here’s what it’s about: ruthless hitman Frank Kitchen is just doing his thing one day, ruthless hitmanning, when he gets jumped and knocked unconscious and later he mysteriously wakes up in a hotel room with a woman’s body. Not, like, in bed with a dead woman. Like, he looks down and he has female genitalia.

Rodriguez plays Kitchen, which makes sense for one of the most macho big name actresses we have, and she does a good job of moving and acting masculine in her feminine body, but she can’t (or doesn’t) play the male part of the movie convincingly. They put a beard on her, and fake nose that I thought made her look a little like Oscar Isaac, but then she just has her normal long hair in a ponytail.

She also has a scene with a fake hairy chest and dick. That doesn’t look real either, but it makes you think “Wow, Walter Hill and Michelle Rodriguez. You’re goin all the way with this thing. Respect.”

(By the way, this is not the only actress who has played a transgender assassin in recent years – there was also Chloe Sevigny on the British show Hit & Miss in 2012. Supposedly she’s good in it, as usual.)

It’s kind of an OLDBOY situation – coming to in a weird, seedy hotel, mysterious tape tells him to keep taking the hormone pills, there are implications that it’s a revenge plot by evil surgeon Rachel Jane (Sigourney Weaver, AVATAR), he does detective shit trying to track down what’s going on. He hides out with a nurse (Caitlin Gerard, MAGIC MIKE ) who takes care of him and they fall for each other, despite the complicated circumstances. And there are flashbacks and stories and Tony Shalhoub ( PAIN & GAIN ) is a psychiatrist hearing Dr. Jane’s side of the story and he doesn’t even believe her that there’s such a person as Frank Kitchen.

Speaking of kitchens, Hill throws everything and the sink at this story: USUAL SUSPECTS style wraparound interrogation, WARRIORS director’s cut type traced-comic-panel-transitions, flashbacks and flash forwards, hard boiled noir narration by Frank that turns out to be a video he made. (When he explains to the audience that he wiped the fingerprints at a crime scene and planted guns on dead people, you gotta question the wisdom of making a video diary about it.)

I know Hill doesn’t need to be chained to the sparseness of HARD TIMES or the precision of ALIEN for everything he ever does, but when he tries to do modern hyperactive style it always seems cheesy. This stuff is too random, too jumbled, too cheap – a bunch of flash without style. Which is ironic, because there’s a scene where Dr. Jane talks about an essay by Edgar Allen Poe, which she interprets as saying that you shouldn’t worry about the content of a piece of art if it’s stylish enough. It’s a pre-emptive meta defense that I think overestimates both how stylish THE ASSIGNMENT is and how offensive it is.

But also don’t worry about it because I don’t think it’s fair to read this as anti-trans. The gender re-assignment surgery is only awful here because it’s done against Frank’s will. In fact, Dr. Jane is performing a mad science experiment that proves that just having the body and hormones of a woman doesn’t change Frank from being a macho prick. The doctor, and the movie, argue that gender is something other than our parts. I would say that Frank is not trans – he doesn’t see himself as a woman.

Another odd gender thing is that Dr. Jane has short hair and is in prison orange for much of the movie, but real late in the game she goes to record a deposition and she’s wearing a suit and tie. I had to think wait a minute, was I supposed to have seen her as a man this whole time? Or was I supposed to see her as a woman but now realize she’s actually a man? As far as I could tell the answer is C, she just wears male type clothes in this scene. And this must be intentional, to keep us on our toes about these gender distinctions.

Actually maybe that’s why he didn’t make this an official Tale From the Crypt, though. The Crypt Keeper would’ve been too insensitive about all this.

Man, I know I’m stepping in it by bringing this up, but I’m stepping in it by reviewing the movie at all, so what the hell, here goes: the other criticism is that a non-trans actor can’t play a trans person in a movie or it’s what they call “trans-face.” Please allow me a moment to dig myself into a hole about sensitive topics.

First I want to say that I know I have at least a couple regular readers who are trans, and I love them and I’m very proud that all kinds of people come together here to talk about action movies and shit. Second I want to say that I groan every time somebody complains about “political correctness” or “identity politics,” and I listened to Bret Easton Ellis’s podcast interview with Hill about this movie dreading Ellis’s inevitable, obnoxious monologue about “snowflakes” (it happens in the middle). I think it’s a good thing to be sensitive to other people’s feelings, and to evolve your values as you get older instead of stubbornly stick with what you grew up with if it’s not working for society anymore (or never was and you just didn’t realize it). And third I want to say that I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong about all this, and it’s more important to me to be nice to people than to be right, so if one or all of you say I’m full of shit I don’t want to fight you about it. We got bigger, stupider, more orange fish to fry and shouldn’t waste energy on our friends.

But… ( Swallow. ) I believe in art as much as I believe in anything, so I have a hard time getting behind these increasingly popular rules that put ideology before art. There are all kinds of nuances and individual cases and sensitivities, of course, but the whole idea of acting is that you’re not the character you’re playing, you’re putting yourself in their shoes. Great stretches and transformations are something we value in many of the great actors. I love seeing Tom Hardy be Bronson and Bane and two guys in LEGEND . I love seeing Meryl Streep doing the accent in BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY and Viggo or Dolph or Scott Adkins playing Russian. I get why people got mad at Zoe Saldana for playing Nina Simone, because she looked ridiculous with that makeup on. But also it sucks for her because she’s a good actress and of course she wanted that role and if it was an Australian guy wearing a fake nose to play a famous Irish guy nobody would’ve trashed him the way they did Saldana, so that’s yet another white privilege.

Anyway if Laverne Cox made a good Letty that would be awesome. Rodriguez doesn’t entirely pull this off not because she’s not actually a man forced to be a woman in real life, but because she doesn’t entirely pull it off.

Having said that, I have to acknowledge that there are more layers to all these controversies about cultural appropriation and different types of “face” and what not. And the biggest part of it is about jobs, and making sure there are opportunities for all talented people, not just the same white ones. So, don’t slow that fight down on my account, but I worry that as people try to right those wrongs they’re demanding a type of segregation. We have this groundswell of the online outraged saying a great Chinese director can’t put Matt Damon in his movie , a man who has practically spent his entire life training to make a movie like BATGIRL can’t make BATGIRL, there can’t be a Halloween costume of The Rock’s character from MOANA because white kids would wear it… and I keep reading about controversies related to novelists writing about characters from other cultures, as if it’s ideal for all stories by white people to only contain white people. Which sort of puts a damper on stories, in my opinion. I see the good in white kids imagining themselves as a Pacific Islander, in men wanting to tell stories about women, in movies that bring together different nations, even though there’s more to it.

Maybe I should assume I just don’t get it. That’s fair. But just make sure you’re not the guys telling Bruce Lee not to combine martial arts disciplines or teach them to non-Chinese people. That’s all I ask. Remember that those are the bad guys in that story. Sharing is progress.

Anyway, please be easy on me, I’m trying to be honest. And now that I’ve dug my own grave revealing all my Archie Bunker shit I realize that the problem with Rodriguez in the role is that she can’t convincingly look like a man for the man parts, and the obvious answer is an actor who is physically male but adept at looking female – a female impersonator. Which I know is different from trans, so maybe we were both wrong? I guess then we’d have trouble believing the parts where it’s crucial that people accept Frank as female, but that seems more achievable than making the audience accept Rodriguez as male.

Believe it or not this thing has been kicking around for almost 40 years now. Denis Hamill (TURK 182!, CRITICAL CONDITION) wrote a version called TOMBOY in 1978 and Hill liked the idea enough that he optioned it and tried to rework it into something of his own. But he never could figure out how to make it work until recently he dug it back out with this idea of making it “like a graphic novel,” whatever that means. He also made it into an actual comic book published by Hard Case Crime. If anybody has read it and liked it better than the movie let me know.

Walter Hill, I don’t know what’s up with you, but at least you’re not boring. Please keep makin ’em.

The Warriors
The Fast and the Furious
The Getaway (1972)

26 Responses to “The Assignment”

June 27th, 2017 at 11:29 am

Hearing about this makes me think of another movie that I can’t even mention the name of without it being a massive SPOILER (I’m pretty sure that Vern hasn’t reviewed it). So what I’ll do is, I’ll write in lower-case font in the middle of a longer paragraph of text copied and pasted from the Washington Post about Senate leaders postponing their shitty healthcare vote below…

… Facing a rebellion within their own ranks, Senate Republican leaders on Tuesday postponed a vote to overhaul the 2010 Affordable Care Act until after the July Fourth recess. The current proposal by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would cause an estimated 22 million more Americans to be uninsured by the end of the coming decade while reducing federal spending by $321 billion during that time, the Congressional Budget Office concluded Monday. The film that I was talking about was talking about was the skin I live in by Almodovar (D-Md), but even mentioning that kinda’ gives away the film’s best twist. The forecast by Congress’s nonpartisan budget scorekeepers appeared to rapidly erode Republicans’ confidence in the bill, with at least five GOP lawmakers saying that they would vote against even a procedural motion to start debate. In a sign of the challenge Senate Republicans face in mustering enough votes, Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said the procedural vote is likely to be scheduled for Wednesday rather than Tuesday.

… anyhow. I don’t think I’ll be checking out THE ASSIGNMENT anytime soon, I’m sad to say. But just to lob a conversational hand grenade into the mix, re: Vern’s thoughts on casting, what did y’all think about Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson?

June 27th, 2017 at 11:45 am

Whatever its flaws this deserves huge credit for giving a double meaning to a totally generic title like THE ASSIGNMENT.

June 27th, 2017 at 12:08 pm

I’m out and about, but I see there is a video essay on this topic, just in time to school me, hopefully it will help me understand.

June 27th, 2017 at 12:45 pm

As always, Vern, really appreciate your honest, thoughtful, and open approach to this sort of issue. One thing I didn’t get from your review: does THE ASSIGNMENT use its nutty gimmick to make any kind of coherent point about gender? Is this a metaphor, somehow, or what? I don’t see how you could have such a button-pushing premise and avoid making some kind of statement, but I sure can’t figure out what it could be from the description.

June 27th, 2017 at 1:00 pm

I agree the movie would probably have worked better with a male actor in the lead, because while I love Rodriguez, seeing the way they tried to make her look like a man was so over the top ridiculous the movie just could not get back from that. And then when her character is turned into a woman, she’s just way too beautiful, making the whole thing so unbelievable they completely lost me. It’s not the even the biggest issue the film has either – that would be the fact that 50% of the running time is spent on conversations between Weaver and her psychiatrist, which are dull and completely unnecessary. That shite would have killed the film dead even if the actor/actress playing the lead would have been 100% convincing.

It’s a shame, because I think there’s tons of potential in the story concept for an intensely disturbing, gripping film. Sadly none of that came out in the execution.

June 27th, 2017 at 1:01 pm

Scott Foy said it sucked and the action isn’t very good.

There are starting to be many transgender actresses. There is one that should be given a female lead. Her name is Michele Hendley. Not only is she hotter than most actresses, she is also a top notch at acting.

June 27th, 2017 at 1:35 pm

I wish 70’s & 80’s greats like Hill and Schrader would stop trying to keep up with the cool kids, and just make their movies without trying too hard. Did anyone see DOG EAT DOG? Apart from being mean-spirited and boring, it was yet another attempt by Schrader to be Tarantino-Cool (see his so-so TOUCH for another example).

Thankfully DePalma is still consistent with his own style.

June 27th, 2017 at 1:38 pm

What the hell has DePalma been up to lately anyway? Seems like he went really quiet after that documentary.

June 27th, 2017 at 3:04 pm

I think it would’ve been entirely possible to make Rodriguez look like a convincing man, but not with that fake beard. Linda Hunt played a man before cgi even existed. That beard just made the whole thing look cheap and misguided.

Also this is a hitman movie with almost no action. She shoots a few people sometimes but if you can’t make an action movie, make it about something else instead of having Sigourney weaver give Exposition for half the movie.

Vern, thank you for baring your soul for us. I found that very steady and even handed. I still hope there is a great trans action movie one day. This is not it.

(A friend even gave me the perfect title for it. TRANSACTION! But that might be insensitive and I’m totally serious about a trans action hero.)

June 27th, 2017 at 5:41 pm

I’ve expressed similar Archie Bunker sentiments here before. I haven’t expressed them as artfully as Vern here, though. I do think there is a kind of moral mob-and-pitchfork psychology of the internet at work where people are just addicted to being outraged by anything that could possibly be regarded as insensitive to [insert one’s identity group here]. On the whole, I think it is good that you have these perspectives in the conversation, shining a light on these issues, keeping people honest, and accountable and whatnot. It’s definitely better than how it was 10-20 years ago when no one really raised these issues, because people did not have a platform to challenge the mainstream white guy way of narrating things. At the same time, I do think there is often a self-righteous, un-nuanced, and petty tenor to a lot of the popular discourse around this stuff that only reinforces right-wingers worst stereotypes of activists and liberals in general.

Also, this picture of Michelle Rodriguez as a dude is cracking me up.

June 27th, 2017 at 5:45 pm

The thing is though Vern, you’re totally right, I don’t understand why people have such a bug up their ass about who can play what in movies these days, acting is an artform, it’s not reality and people used to understand that, Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar for playing an autistic character, as Franchise Fred mentioned Linda Hunt won an Oscar for playing a male character and Gary Oldman tried and spectacularly failed in TIPTOES to play a little person, but now people seem to have this literalist attitude that you can only portray what you are, which is highly reductive to the artform that is acting.

That’s not to say that for example GHOST IN THE SHELL would have been a lot more interesting with a Japanese actress instead of ScarJo, but people are taking it too far when they insist that only a trans person can portray a trans character for example.

The most recent absurd controversy of that type I’ve heard is people don’t want Peter Dinklage to play Herve Villechaize, as if actors who are little people and the exact same (mixed) ethnicity as Herve Villechaize are easy to find.

June 27th, 2017 at 5:59 pm

Yeah, that photo does not work. Michelle Rodriguez has a certain toughness to her that might make you think she could pull off pretending to be a dude, but it’s just not happening here (although, maybe it works better when it’s not a still image? Maybe?). The makeup department weren’t doing their job.

June 27th, 2017 at 7:59 pm

I’m not sure there’s anything really worth talking about regarding The Assignment except to note how ironic it is that, of the films in the ‘Wouldn’t it be fucked up if a surgeon gave you SRS?’ microgenre (the awkward little… brother(?) of the ‘Unnecessary surgery probably sucks, eh? family) the one that started with a ‘killer t****y’ script in the 70’s would have the best understanding of gender identity?

I will lightly defend the pre-backlash in that the early details of the film and early interviews and such were pretty dire sounding.

As far as casting goes, well, I am quite sure this is unintentional because you’re good people Vern, but you come off pretty reactionary in the review. Better actors are passed up for parts all of the time for dumber or more political reasons than ‘let’s try auditoning a trans actor for the trans role for once.’ Like, it’s kind of ludicrous to imply that casting someone in movie for name recognition or because they know someone or because they signed a multi-movie contract and you’d really like to get that over with is fine, but if you are thinking about prioritizing trans actors in trans roles, that’s when you’ve crossed the line and are getting in the way of True Art.

I don’t want to come off as being mean or harsh because I know you’re trying your best on these sort of things and I appreciate it, and I understand you were mostly using it to launch into a broader point but it does come off as ill-conceived, at least in regards to this particular issue (if not this particular movie because it’s really pretty tangental to trans stuff in movies and TV.)

June 27th, 2017 at 9:26 pm

Thank you, Birch. I certainly don’t mean to imply that it would be unfair if trans actors were prioritized for any roles. I’m more thinking that if whatever actor does great they should be praised for it. Like, I’m not able to get mad at Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze for TO WONG FOO, for example. But in retrospect I think what I’m arguing for here is kind of a pipe dream/idealist/easy-for-me-to-say type of world where those types of artistic decisions can be made not at the expense of other actors. I guess I just hope some day if the world survives long enough there won’t be such an imbalance and a side benefit of that will be that those type of castings won’t be a problem.

I appreciate the criticism and thanks for being so nice about it too.

p.s. I’m glad I didn’t bring up when Joseph Fiennes almost played Michael Jackson

June 27th, 2017 at 9:38 pm

I just watched this and Vern is right. It’s not anti-trans by any stretch. The awful thing that is done to Frank is not making him a female but forcing him to live as someone he did not choose to be…so the message can actually be construed as pro-be who you are.

(I threw some red in there)

June 27th, 2017 at 11:07 pm

I mean, that is a high school drama club level beard. Come on!

June 27th, 2017 at 11:21 pm

I’m really surprised that this movie has such a good cast! Especially because I didn’t know it existed before your review.

As usual, you nailed my thoughts about a certain topic in a much more eloquent way than I would be able to word them, so I just shut up.

Btw, I finally realized who “male” Michelle Rodriguez reminds me of: singer/transvestite Conchita Wurst!

June 28th, 2017 at 4:24 am

Liked this one – It’s not Top of the Hill Hill, but it’s not bad, kinda brave and says some interesting stuff.

I really did not understand the whole “this film is trans-phobic” thing at all.

Critics were falling over themselves inn a rush to be offended.

There are many things to be legit upset about in this shitty world – but the indignation surrounding this one was wrong headed, I think.

June 28th, 2017 at 1:50 pm

Like you, over the years I’ve come around to thinking that some of the ideological purity tests leveled against art, even if well-intentioned, can be harmful in their own ways. Ultimately I think it just comes down to this: everyone’s going to have their own opinion about something, and it’s impossible to make something that NO ONE could complain about (and even if it were possible that thing would probably not be universally adored, but considered boringly inoffensive at best).

As a director, this comes up for me most during casting. I often have to ask myself, am I being racist/sexist/ageist/whateverist here? If I cast *this* particular person in this role, am I missing an opportunity to give another actor of a different gender/race more visibility? And after I weigh those & every bit of criteria, who do *I* think is best for a role? Every director will weigh those criteria differently, just as every viewer is going to have their own opinion about whether the correct decisions were made. So at a certain point you have to just accept that and own your decisions, knowing that they won’t work for everyone. Then if more than 50% of people think you screwed up, you probably did, so you apologize. Otherwise you brush it off.

June 28th, 2017 at 9:21 pm

I haven’t seen this film but Rodriguez’s makeup doesn’t look that bad to me in the screen grab here. S/he looks kinda like Richard Edson to me. Something seems off about the arms though – maybe they just need to be hairier?

Reading about this movie reminds me of the old Melvin Van Peebles movie WATERMELON MAN, in which Godfrey Cambridge has to be in whiteface at the beginning of the movie in order to play a white guy who mysteriously transforms into a black guy. Obviously that film was a satire about race relations, so I share Subtlety’s curiosity about whether THE ASSIGNMENT addresses gender issues in any similar way.

What’s interesting about WATERMELON MAN now (or even 10 years ago, which is when I think I saw it on TV) is that it allows for the possibility of a person born into a more privileged group coming to identify with the struggles of a less privileged group, which is not a possibility that the modern left seems to allow for much anymore. I have come to loath hearing the word “appropriation” which basically is a fancy word which means “don’t be influenced by or try to identify with other peoples and cultures, ever, because that kind of open-mindedness is bad”.

I don’t remember people booing when Felicity Huffman played a transgender ex-male in TRANSAMERICA – in fact it won a GLAAD Media Award didn’t it?

Lesson learned: if you make yet another movie about a white straight “cisgender” male then you’re fine, but if you even try to depict anyone else then you’ll be ripped to shreds. Which strikes me as a really counterproductive strategy for promoting diversity.

If nothing else, the “let’s attack a limited-release film starring a Latina bisexual actress, and say we’re doing it to defend the underdog” crowd has raised my awareness of this film and made me curious to see it.

August 13th, 2017 at 2:07 pm

First of all – movie business is still business. So every decision is made to gain more profit. If bringing in transgender actress/actor and it seems profitable to suits, then they’ll do it. Of course, there would be filmmakers with mission, especially in indie circles, to spread the word about certain problems etc, but I watch movies for entertainment. I leave my moral issues and dilemmas behind at the moment I enter the cinema. If someone calls someone nigger or white trash in movies, it won’t offend me – quite many people are mixing reality and movies, bursting into movie message boards and shouting about how this or that movie is racist or how Zaldana should be get bigger roles. She WILL get bigger roles, if it’s meaning more profit to the studios.

February 23rd, 2023 at 8:01 am

I saw that Dead For a Dollar played all the autumn festivals (Venice, Toronto, etc) to mostly favorable reviews, and I’ve certainly kept my eyes open for some sort of –y’know–release.

So, imagine my surprise to walk into the public library and see it on the DVD rack…

I’ve yet to watch it, I’m just making this post as a PSA in case there’s others that had no idea it was ever released to the public in any form.

(Didn’t really know where to put this, so I picked the comments for Hill’s previous most recent movie)

February 23rd, 2023 at 10:38 am

I haven’t seen it yet either, but I have heard from multiple people that despite low production values it’s good and interesting.

February 23rd, 2023 at 10:44 am

I thought DEAD FOR A DOLLAR was decent. A generic-but-enjoyable western with some really great actors and a few select moments of really great lines and patter. I didn’t care for the sepia-toned look of it, though. I really liked THE HARDER THEY FALL because it showed how it was okay, even cool, for a western to be colourful. The colouring of the fantasy-western comic THE SIXTH GUN had a similar objective, and it was refreshing there, too.

February 23rd, 2023 at 12:28 pm

I Redboxed Dead For A Dollar a while ago. It doesn’t really live up to your expectation of what a Walter Hill-Christoph Waltz-Willem Dafoe joint should be, but it’s kinda fun to watch the three of them do their thing. You’ve just got to accept that you’re in for Django, not Clint Eastwood.

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THE ASSIGNMENT

"tracking a terrorist".

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

What You Need To Know:

(Pa, Ro, LL, VVV, NN, SS, A, D, M) Pagan, romantic worldview; 20 total obscenities & profanities; excessive violence including shooting & explosions with bloodletting; depicted & implied fornication & one scene of marital intercourse; alcohol use; smoking & drug use; and corruption

More Detail:

THE ASSIGNMENT opens with a squalid scene of a little boy relieving himself in a street to the sounds of lovemaking. Nude Carlos (Aidan Quinn) looks out a shabby window and tells a naked woman to get lost as he burns a spider in its web with the end of his cigarette. He puts on a disguise, then enters a French café, where he greets CIA agent Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) just before he throws a grenade, which kills and maims innocent men, women, and children. Shaw realizes that the man who greeted him was the notorious Carlos.

Long, unkempt hair, Carlos interrupts an OPEC meeting at its ornate headquarters and holds the Arab delegates hostage until he gets a $20 million in ransom. Jack Shaw strenuously objects to giving into Carlos’ demands and recommends that the CIA kill the terrorist once and for all when they encounter him at the Paris airport just before Carlos boards his plane. Shaw’s boss interrupts the assassination of the killer and reminds Shaw that the United States does not officially assassinate people.

Annibal Ramirez (Aidan Quinn), a Navy lieutenant who bears a striking resemblance to Carlos wanders through an Israeli market on shore leave. A group of Israeli-looking men give chase, and Ramirez flees, running into a crowded market stall, where he is jumped, beaten and thrown into jail. Israeli Intelligence Officer, Amos (Ben Kingsley), a MOSSAD agent, is convinced he has found Carlos, but, during the interrogation, Amos realizes his mistake and releases a very angry Ramirez, who vows to sue him.

Realizing the strategic value of Ramirez’s cooperation, Shaw immediately seizes the opportunity to conscript Ramirez into CIA service to capture Carlos. He trains for months without knowing exactly what the operation is. After repeated objections, Shaw finally persuades Ramirez to join the fight after he shows him pictures of the young boys Carlos killed. Then, Shaw tells Ramirez that he must commit adultery and possibly murder others in order to snare this terrorist. Shaw tells Ramirez that he has to adopt Carlos’ mindset in order to survive, and he does.

Shaw plans to convince the KGB that Carlos has defected to the CIA in order that the KGB will kill him themselves. Because a French counter-terrorism operation goes wrong, Ramirez ends up committing adultery and killing French operatives. He returns to his family in Virginia and kills an over-zealous little league father in a spat. Angry and bitter, Ramirez realizes that he has become almost as evil as Carlos. His wife knows something is changed. He confesses to her that he has had another woman and has killed men in the service of his country.

Shaw pursues another plan to capture Carlos and conscripts Ramirez once again, this time threatening his family. The result has an interesting twist. In the end, Ramirez stares out a window and burns a spider in a web, indicating that Carlos’ evil has possessed Ramirez, perhaps forever.

The theme of the movie is that all intelligence organizations are deceitful, and the CIA and the MOSSAD are just as ugly and evil as the international terrorists against whom they fight. Quinn does a good job of rendering the dilemma of the double-minded man, torn between his desire to serve his country, and to love his family.

With good production values and superb acting, THE ASSIGNMENT communicates the message that the only way man can defeat evil is with more evil. This message is cynical and anti-Christian. Jesus Christ defeated evil on the Cross (Colossians 2:15), and He didn’t use more evil. He offered Himself, the Sinless One, as the only atonement for sin and evil. Jesus defeated evil once and for all time with good.

THE ASSIGNMENT opens with lewd images, apt images for a movie which exposes the truth that the world, without God, is evil and unsafe. The tragedy of this movie is that there is a deeper truth − there is a God who has defeated evil with good.

The Assignment (1997)

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Movie Review: THE ASSIGNMENT

April 7, 2017 January 28, 2019
Devin March

Good evening fiends of fright! Tonight we explore a genre film that’s a bit different than what we usually review, legendary director and producer Walter Hill’s THE ASSIGNMENT , which stars Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shaloub and Caitlin Gerard. Rarely do I get my hands on a film to review that is this star studded and stuffed with action, so needless to say, I was thrilled to jump into my assignment (pun intended). For an overview of the synopsis, I’ll be turning to the pro’s at IMDB for their breakdown:

“After waking up and discovering that he has undergone gender reassignment surgery, an assassin seeks to find the doctor responsible.”

First off, I want to say that the plot for this movie was awesome. I don’t care what Rotten Tomatoes says, this plot idea was totally original in my opinion and a fucking terrifying concept to say the least. With all the drama and controversy floating around the world involving gender roles this was a genius concept as it touched on the subject in a really interesting and fun way.

It was hard for me to really criticize the acting of Sigourney Weaver, who is our primary antagonist, or Michelle Rodriguez, our kind-of protagonist. Needless to say, they were excelle in this film, especially Michelle Rodriguez who plays a man during the first portion of the movie and then a man trapped in a woman’s body for the remainder of the film. In my opinion, I think she totally killed it. The interactions between Tony Shaloub and Sigourney Weaver were intense to say the least and kept me totally sucked in during their scenes. Sigourney Weaver blew me away with her performance as a twisted surgeon with an insane agenda.

Along with the great acting, this movie was action packed! Michelle Rodriguez was a total asskicker, which isn’t too far off if you’ve seen her in other great (or terrible, depending on who you ask) action flicks she has been in. There’s also a great deal of gun play which is always entertaining when it’s done the right way; which in my opinion was, and was totally satisfying. Although Michelle Rodriguez’s character, Frank Kitchen, is an assassin, she’s not necessarily a good guy, and it’s hard not to feel like all the killing is justified based off of how screwed over he, I mean she, gets.

When it came to the scene transitions, they were very reminiscent of the film THE WARRIORS, but still was able to have it’s own unique style that fit with the film. There almost seemed to be a noir type vibe to it which I really loved.

As for the viewing experience, the film is an easy watch with some dialogue that you do have to pay attention to because it adds to the plot establishment. I can see why some people wouldn’t like it, particularly movie critics, but I didn’t take it at face value and I enjoyed it for what it was – a fun, action packed thriller with a star studded cast! I could easily recommend this film for fans of movies like CRANK or SMOKING ACES , or any action flicks from the nineties.

Overall, I enjoyed THE ASSIGNMENT and will be picking up a copy for my film collection because it kicked a ton of ass!

THE ASSIGNMENT is now available on Ultra VOD and will be released in select theaters on April 7th

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The Assignment Movie

A hit man seeks revenge after being knocked out and awakening to discover he has been surgically turned into a woman.

Who's Involved:

Michelle Rodriguez, Tony Shalhoub, Walter Hill, Sigourney Weaver, Anthony LaPaglia, Caitlin Gerard

Release Date:

Friday, April 7, 2017 Limited

Plot: What's the story about?

Hitman Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez) is given a lethal assignment, but after being double-crossed, he discovers he’s not the man he thought he was—he’s been surgically altered and now has the body of a woman. Seeking vengeance, Frank heads for a showdown with the person (Sigourney Weaver) who transformed him, a brilliant surgeon with a chilling agenda of her own.

official plot version from sabanfilms.com

3.21 / 5 stars ( 14 users)

Poll: Will you see The Assignment?

Who stars in The Assignment: Cast List

Michelle Rodriguez

Machete, Turbo

Sigourney Weaver

Avatar: Fire and Ash, The Master Gardener

Tony Shalhoub

Cars 2, Pain and Gain

Anthony LaPaglia

Annabelle: Creation, Big Stone Gap

Caitlin Gerard

Insidious: The Last Key, Smiley

Who's making The Assignment: Crew List

A look at the The Assignment behind-the-scenes crew and production team. The film's director Walter Hill last directed Dead For A Dollar and Bullet to the Head . The film's writer Walter Hill last wrote Dead For A Dollar and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? .

Walter Hill

Screenwriter

Production Companies

Watch the assignment trailers & videos.

Theatrical Trailer

Production: what we know about the assignment.

Michelle Rodriguez is to play the hitman while Sigourney Weaver is the scalpel-wielding doctor.
Based on a story by Denis Hamill.

Filming Timeline

2016 - May : The film was set to Completed status.

Cameras start rolling November 9, 2015 in Vancouver.

The Assignment Release Date: When was the film released?

The Assignment was a Limited release in 2017 on Friday, April 7, 2017 . There were 18 other movies released on the same date, including Smurfs: The Lost Village , Going in Style and The Case for Christ . As a Limited release, The Assignment will only be shown in select movie theaters across major markets. Please check Fandango and Atom Tickets to see if the film is playing in your area.

The Assignment DVD & Blu-ray Release Date: When was the film released?

The Assignment was released on DVD & Blu-ray on Tuesday, June 6 , 2017 .

The Assignment VOD & Digital: When was the film released digitally?

The Assignment was released across all major streaming and cable platforms on Friday, April 7 , 2017 . Digital rental or purchase allows you to instantly stream and download to watch anywhere and anytime on your favorite devices. Available from various digital retailers including Amazon Video, iTunes, Google Play, Apple, Vudu and others.

Q&A Asked about The Assignment

Seen the movie? Rate It!

Also known as

Tomboy, A Revenger's Tale

Follow the Updates

Mon., Jun. 12, 2017 from Amazon
added the US Blu-ray release date of June 6, 2017
added the US DVD release date of June 6, 2017
Sun., Mar. 19, 2017 from Saban Films
added Theatrical Trailer to trailers & videos
added the US VOD release date of April 7, 2017
added a poster to the gallery
added photos to the gallery
added a synopsis
set the MPAA rating to R for graphic nudity, violence, sexuality, language and drug use
added a running time of 95 minutes

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The Assignment Reviews

In its low-rent way, it aims for every frisson, reversal and shock-tactic -- and mostly succeeds.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 2, 2023

Like for most action pics, character development is the first casualty.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 27, 2016

Stylish spy flick with a surprisingly good cast.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 6, 2005

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 28, 2005

A non-formula spy thriller without the glitz and romanticism usually associated with this genre.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Mar 10, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Feb 12, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 4, 2002

If there's a small saving grace to this crude thriller, it is the work of Montreal-born director Christian Duguay, who shows flashes of real flare.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 12, 2002

The plot raises the keenly important question of whether professionals who fight evil may be corrupted by the ruthless means they employ; but the movie takes too much pleasure in sensationalistic digressions to explore this issue very thoroughly.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 25, 2002

Quinn is excellent in the dual roles of Jackal and Ramirez.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 24, 2002

Melodramatic pap.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jun 5, 2002

If you believe that Elvis still lives or that a millennial invasion of flying saucers is imminent, you might buy the bogus premise.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 1, 2000

A film of real finesse, style and intelligence, an espionage thriller of the old school, with some modern technical embellishments.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 1, 2000

Quinn gives a commanding performance as both Ramirez and Carlos.

Full Review | Jan 1, 2000

The assignment, should you choose to accept it, does pay off in potent thrills.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jan 1, 2000

An intelligent, imaginative bit a fiction about suggesting one way the killer may have been captured.

A spy thriller with no thrills, no doubt an interesting cinematic gambit but not one we'd recommend.

A mediocre action-thriller combination that revolves around a preposterous plan for the same reason that most pot-boilers do; it's just the nature of the beast.

Great premise is executed with enough style and thrills to keep the piece interesting throughout its close to two-hour runtime.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jan 1, 2000

Intelligent and gripping.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 1, 2000

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Movies & Movie Reviews

"The Assignment" Movie Review

Nathan is an aspiring author with a true passion for film and mental health who hopes their writings will help launch their career.

The Assignment is one of those films that will most likely be deemed as too controversial or maybe even insulting. It's a difficult film to review, especially in today's world, because the subject matter is of a very sensitive nature. I've been asking myself how to go about writing this because I don't want to upset anyone but at the same time I feel like this kind of film shouldn't be taken to heart among the transgender community. It's an action film and action films rarely think. The writer seemed to just be trying to think of a situation that might be horrifying for straight men and, yes, this would be a horrifying situation for them. Really, it would be for anyone. So, now that I've reassured everyone that I am only here to review a film and not to offend anyone, let's get on with the review.

The Assignment follows hitman Frank Kitchen who is double-crossed by gangsters and handed over to a rogue surgeon who only goes by the alias The Doctor. The Doctor gives Frank an assignment, or more accurately a reassignment, turning him into a woman. Naturally, when Frank wakes to discover he has a new body, and lacking some very important parts to him, he sets out to get revenge on The Doctor.

The film has your basic action-movie plot, just with a twist. Hitman makes gangsters angry, gangsters get mad and take revenge, hitman gets mad and takes revenge on gangsters. It's a pretty flimsy story and I honestly felt the whole sex-change part of the plot was wildly unnecessary. Why couldn't they have just killed his girlfriend or threatened a family member or something? Either way, the film's saving grace was its two lead women Michelle Rodriguez and Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney was downright diabolical as The Doctor and I would love to see her be a villainess again in the future....and in a better film. Michelle proves that she's willing to undergo some serious changes in her methods in order to try to make a film better.

I will say that the prosthetics used on Michelle to make her look like a man were well-done and very convincing. It's probably a good thing that they were only needed for a short amount of time because I imagine that beard was pretty itchy.

Overall, it was one of those films that I liked yet kinda didn't. It didn't really do anything to hurt the public's view on trans people but at the same time it didn't really help either. Most of the film felt like it could have been approached better but the budget restraints wouldn't allow it. Michelle will bounce back with Fate of the Furious and Sigourney will bounce back just because she's Sigourney Weaver and a legendary leading lady. I give the film a total of 2 out of 4.

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COMMENTS

The Assignment movie review & film summary (2017)
The Assignment. " The Assignment " is a film that arrives in theaters having already inspired vast outpourings of anger from two groups —the transgender community, which appears to be offended by its very premise, and action buffs, who are put off both by the premise (albeit for different reasons) and what they feel is a lazy execution ...
The Assignment
The Assignment. After being double-crossed, a hit man becomes a hit woman with help from a rogue surgeon. She sets out for revenge along with a nurse named Johnnie. Watch The Assignment with a ...
The Assignment movie review & film summary (1997)
Roger Ebert. September 26, 1997. 3 min read. "The Assignment" is a canny, tricky thriller that could serve as an illustration of what this week's similar release, "The Peacemaker," is not. Both films involve an international hunt for a dangerous terrorist, but "The Peacemaker" is a cartoon and "The Assignment" is intelligent ...
'The Assignment' Review: A Hitman Caught Between Two Worlds
Considering its over-the-top plot mechanics, The Assignment isn't quite as nutso and passionate as it ought to be. Even the violence, gritty at times, feels a little impersonal and detached. But ...
The Assignment
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 29, 2019. The Assignment feels like a case where the audacity of the premise and the talent attached to the project kind of supercede the ultimate quality ...
The Assignment (2016)
The Assignment: Directed by Walter Hill. With Michelle Rodriguez, Tony Shalhoub, Anthony LaPaglia, Caitlin Gerard. After waking up and discovering that he has undergone gender reassignment surgery, an assassin seeks to find the doctor responsible.
Review: Seeking Revenge for 'The Assignment' She Didn't Want
In Walter Hill's film, a revenge plot is set in motion after a hit man, played by Michelle Rodriguez, undergoes a forced gender reassignment surgery.
The Assignment Movie Review
Violent thriller irresponsibly tackles transgender themes. Read Common Sense Media's The Assignment review, age rating, and parents guide.
'The Assignment': Film Review
A demented pulp fiction about a brilliant surgeon who creates a Frankenstein monster by performing a sex change on the scumbag assassin who killed her brother, The Assignment (previously titled ...
THE ASSIGNMENT (2017)
Watching the movie is a different experience than just reading about the setup of its plot (Imagine that), and having seen The Assignment, I can say that its biggest sin isn't cultural, political, or anything of that nature. No, the biggest problem is that it's dull. The screenplay by Denis Hamill and director Walter Hill takes a controversial premise—for better or for worse—and turns it ...
'The Assignment' review: a gender-twist thriller full of rage
A vengeful doctor (played by Sigourney Weaver) turns a hit man (Michelle Rodriguez) into a woman in this thriller from filmmaker Walter Hill. Rating: 2 stars out of 4.
The Assignment (2016)
The Assignment (2016) *** (out of 4) Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez) is a hitman who pulls a job not knowing what impact it will have on him. It turns out that he murdered the brother of a doctor (Sigourney Weaver) who gets her revenge by kidnapping Frank and turning him into a woman.
The Assignment (2017) Movie Reviews
Buy Pixar movie tix to unlock Buy 2, ... The Assignment (2017) Critic Reviews and Ratings Powered by Rotten Tomatoes Rate Movie. Close Audience Score. The percentage of users who made a verified movie ticket purchase and rated this 3.5 stars or higher. ... Learn more. Review Submitted. GOT IT. Offers SEE ALL OFFERS. START THE NEW YEAR ON A MEAN ...
The Assignment
The Assignment THE ASSIGNMENT is Walter Hill's weird new pariah of a movie, a Tale From the Crypt without a Keeper, based on a gimmick that was too challenging to execute properly, even ignoring the current touchiness of the subject matter. It's much more interesting than good, more of a great acting challenge for Michelle Rodriguez (AVATAR) than a successful vehicle for her talents. Nice ...
THE ASSIGNMENT
Is THE ASSIGNMENT family friendly? Find out only at Movieguide. The Family and Christian Guide to Movie Reviews and Entertainment News.
The Assignment
The Assignment - Metacritic. Summary Hitman Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez) is given a lethal assignment, but after being double-crossed, he discovers he's not the man he thought he was—he's been surgically altered and now has the body of a woman. Seeking vengeance, Frank heads for a showdown with the person (Sigourney Weaver) who ...
The Assignment (2016 film)
The Assignment (also known as Tomboy, Revenger (in Australia) and formerly known as (Re) Assignment and Tomboy: A Revenger's Tale) [4] is an action crime thriller film directed by Walter Hill and co-written by Hill and Denis Hamill.
The Assignment (2017) Movie Review: An Unorthodox Revenge Story
We take a look at The Assignment, the controversial new thriller from Walter Hill starring Michelle Rodriguez who goes undergoes a life-changing surgery. PopHorror Let's Get Scared. PopHorror; News. Coming Soon To Digital And VOD: 'I'LL PLAY MOTHER' ... (2024) - Movie Review
The Assignment (1997)
The Assignment" is a good movie that reminds a bit a Bourne movie . There is quite a lot story here - more than in a typical action movie . The movie is based somewhat on real story. It's probably isn't 100 % true , yet it feels like it happened for real.
Movie Review: THE ASSIGNMENT
Good evening fiends of fright! Tonight we explore a genre film that's a bit different than what we usually review, legendary director and producer Walter Hill's THE ASSIGNMENT, which stars Michelle Rodriguez, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shaloub and Caitlin Gerard.Rarely do I get my hands on a film to review that is this star studded and stuffed with action, so needless to say, I was thrilled to ...
Everything You Need to Know About The Assignment Movie (2017)
The Assignment Movie. By Amy Renner Jun. 12, 2017. A hit man seeks revenge after being knocked out and awakening to discover he has been surgically turned into a woman. Who's Involved: Michelle Rodriguez, Tony Shalhoub, Anthony LaPaglia, Walter Hill, Sigourney Weaver, Caitlin Gerard. Release Date: Friday, April 7, 2017 Limited. R RESTRICTED MPA.
The Assignment
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 12, 2002. The plot raises the keenly important question of whether professionals who fight evil may be corrupted by the ruthless means they employ; but the ...
"The Assignment" Movie Review
The Assignment is one of those films that will most likely be deemed as too controversial or maybe even insulting.It's a difficult film to review, especially in today's world, because the subject matter is of a very sensitive nature. I've been asking myself how to go about writing this because I don't want to upset anyone but at the same time I feel like this kind of film shouldn't be taken to ...

The Assignment

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