FILM REVIEW OF ''THE ASSIGNMENT" (2016)

“Extreme Prejudice” director Walter Hill’s most audacious crime thriller “The Assignment” (**1/2 OUT OF ****) might eventually emerge as a cult item after the controversial LGBT criticism about it dies down.  This exploitative Canadian independent film release concerns a disgruntled female plastic surgeon who turns a professional, pistol-packing assassin into a female without either his knowledge or consent.  “You’ve been a very bad man,” Dr. Rachel Jane (Sigourney Weaver of “Alien”) condemns homicidal Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez of “The Fast and The Furious”), in an audio recording left behind for our protagonist to listen to after his surgery. “This is your opportunity for redemption.” Basically, Dr. Jane radically changed Frank because the latter had iced her worthless, cocaine-snorting, playboy brother, Sebastian (Adrian Hough of “Underworld: Evolution”), who was drowning in debt to the Miami mob.  Dr. Jane had given her brother enough money to liquidate his gambling debts, but he recklessly blew every cent. After her brother’s demise, she spent a small fortune tracking down the elusive Kitchen.  Improbably, Jane believed the sex change would make Kitchen into a better woman than a man!  After our angry protagonist recovered sufficiently from this shocking ordeal, he sets out to exact a terrible toll on those dastards who had a hand in the appalling sex change operation that turned his life upside-down.  Along the way, Kitchen realizes that a long-time, criminal accomplice, Honest John Hartunian (Anthony LaPaglia of “Empire Records”), whom he had trusted, sold him out to Jane.  When everything becomes clear to him, Kitchen realizes an attractive nurse, Johnnie (Caitlin Gerard of “Magic Mike”), with whom he had a one-night tumble, was also a part of the set-up.  

While the hopelessly frustrated Kitchen contends with his own quandary, the megalomaniacal surgeon, Dr. Jane (Sigourney Weaver of “Alien”), who quotes Shakespeare and considers herself an artist, has been locked up at the Mendocino Psychiatric Facility in Northern California.  Psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Galen (Tony Shalhoub of “Men in Black”) must evaluate Jane, lashed up in a straitjacket for her own good, to determine if she is competent to stand trial for a massacre at her clandestine surgical facility.  After receiving an anonymous tip, the San Francisco Police had taken Jane into custody.  They found the good doctor unconscious on her own operating table surrounded by four bullet-riddled men.  Jane’s male surgical nurse and sometime lover Albert Becker (Ken Kirzinger of “Freddy vs. Jason”) lies dead with a pistol in his hand.  Ballistics matched the slugs from Becker’s gun that he had used to kill not only the three men, but also to wound Jane in the shoulder.   Meanwhile, Kitchen sets out to find Dr. Jane after gunning down several other criminal contacts that he suspects may have conspired with Jane.  Kitchen’s luck runs out initially when she confronts Jane.  Jane’s henchmen take our transgendered heroine captive, but they fail to frisk her.  Ultimately, this proves to be a fatal mistake.  Meantime, Dr. Galen refuses to believe Dr. Jane’s alibi that Kitchen shot her three bodyguards, Albert, and wounded her.  A major point of contention between them is the existence of Frank Kitchen. Galen doesn’t believe the man exists, despite Dr. Jane’s assertions to the contrary. Instead, he is convinced Jane “invented Frank Kitchen to protect the memory of Albert Becker.”

Predictably, “The Assignment” provides Hill with an opportunity to orchestrate several indiscriminate, B-movie fire-fights that easily rack up a double-digit body count.  Apart from its bizarre premise, this gritty exercise in murder and mayhem resembles one of Walter Hill’s brutal, old-fashioned, shoot’em ups.  Hill has helmed classics like “48 HRS,” “Hard Times,” “Last Man Standing,” “Bullet to the Head,” “The Driver” and “Red Heat.” Unfortunately, despite gunfire galore and the glee with which our merciless protagonist devastates the opposition, Michelle Rodriguez is not entirely convincing as a guy.  The biggest liability is the bogus beard that looks like it has been attached to her face with glue.  Meanwhile, Hill achieves more success with computer-generated-imagery.  Rodriguez cavorts about in private during an early scene as a nude dude displaying a hairy chest and abundant male genitalia.  Not surprisingly, Rodriguez makes the most of this outlandish role, and she finds herself trapped in some confrontations that are quite entertaining in a pulp fiction way.  Sigourney Weaver has a field day as the cold-as-a-scalpel surgeon who castrated Frank.  Deep down, Weaver’s Dr. Jane is thoroughly despicable; she would have been in good company with Hitler’s demented surgeons who exploited Jewish prisoners in the Nazi death camps.  Categorically, Weaver steals the show with her nuanced performance and detailed character.  All the other characters blend into the background with British Columbia locales that have been dressed to resemble San Francisco.  “The Assignment” evokes memories of an earlier Hill epic “Johnny Handsome.” In that movie, a deformed gangster went under the knife, and the surgical procedure changed him into a nice guy.  Inevitably, his evil past came back to haunt him.  For the record, “Turk 182” scenarist Denis Hamill dreamed up “The Assignment” back in 1978, and Hill rewrote it many times before finally making it.  Ironically, during the first few minutes of the film, we hear Kitchen confess that he had killed a lot of people during his time, and his comeuppance (the sex-change operation) was preferable to death.  Admittedly, Hill and Hamill have a tough time making this sex change gimmick work. Nothing about Kitchen’s discovery about his castration is played strictly for laughs, and Hill and Hamill keep “The Assignment” from degenerating into lowest-common-denominator camp.  Whether you’re either transgendered or a traditional enthusiast of hard-boiled thrillers, “The Assignment” (talk about a generic title) will take you by surprise, if it doesn’t ultimately alienate you.  Obviously, this is just the kind of movie that few people would want to see, and perhaps least of all want others to know that they had seen.  For fans of 75-year old writer & director Walter Hill, “The Assignment” qualifies as a departure from the norm that delivers.

FILM REVIEW OF ''JOHN WICK: CHAPTER TWO" (2017)

Hollywood makes out two types of sequels.  First, those sequels that aren’t as good as their forerunners.  Second, those sequels that surpass their predecessors. Basically, sequels are either better or worse than what spawned them.  “John Wick: Chapter 2” (***1/2 OUT OF ****) belongs to the second category.   Stunt double Chad Stahelski and scenarist Derek Kolstad respectively return as director and writer for the bullet-riddled bloodbath “John Wick 2,” and Keanu Reeves reprises his role as the invincible, sharp-shooting assassin who doesn’t aim to please.  No, Wick’s new pet pooch doesn’t die in this installment.  Moreover, no other animals are harmed.  Anybody who saw the original “John Wick” knows the villains spoke in awe about John Wick’s lethal use of pencils.  Appropriately enough, Stahelski stages a pencil scene for the sequel, and you will have an entirely new respect for yellow number two pencils.  We’ll have to see if something like this doesn’t ultimately winds up as merchandise to advertise the franchise.  This unbreakable pencil preserves its point throughout a slam-bang combat encounter that would shatter a regular pencil.  Audaciously preposterous, hopelessly predictable, but thoroughly captivating nonsense, “John Wick 2” pushes everything to the limit except the number of lines uttered by Keanu Reeves.  Tired of gun shy, shoot’em ups that confine their mortality rates to single digits? “John Wick 2” boasts a triple-digit body count with an alarming number of head shots.  Typically, our bruised and battered hero pumps two slugs into an adversary’s torso and then polishes them off with one in the noggin.  When he exhausts his ammo, he resorts to battlefield salvage and appropriates another man’s weapon so he can keep on killing. Meaning, if you require discretion in the depiction of violence, you may have complaints about this exciting, atmospheric, and elegantly lensed action thriller with lots of colorfully illuminated settings.  Incidentally, “John Wick 2” reunites Reeves and “Matrix” co-star Laurence Fishburne for a couple of scenes. Were it little more than the original, “John Wick 2” wouldn’t be as memorable, but it is something more with some imaginative tweaks that its predecessor lacked.

“John Wick: Chapter 2” picks up where the previous epic ended.  Since Wick has acquired a new dog, he searches now for the car that his enemies stole, and the film opens with an over-the-top, car-smashing, body-crashing encounter in a rival mobster’s garage with our hero relying on wits, fists, and martial arts.  Like a respectable sequel, “John Wick 2” reminds us what was at stake in the first film as well as the character of our hero.  A relative of the mobsters who shot Wick’s puppy dog and then beat him senseless, Abram (Peter Stormare of “22 Jump Street”) is preparing to clear out since he fears Wick is coming after him next.  While Wick dispatches Abram’s army of thugs and mechanics, Abram’s eyes bulge with abject terror, and Stormare gives a great performance by his reactions to the arrival of his adversary.  When they finally meet after our hero has cleared a gauntlet of killers, Wick pours Abram a drink and proposes peace with a toast.  The two gulp their liquor and forge an armistice.  Abram bids Wick a happy retirement.  Naturally, however, nothing of the sort is going to happen either for Wick or the audience.  In a bit of backstory, we learn that John Wick indebted himself to a treacherous, high-ranking mobster, Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio of “Loose Cannons”), with a blood oath marker so he could retire and live peacefully with his wife Helen.  Now, after wrapping up his revenge, Wick discovers to his chagrin that Santino is calling in that marker!  Although Wick is in no position to refuse an assignment from Santino, he refuses to accommodate Santino because he is weary of all the shooting and killing.  A disappointed Santino leaves Wick’s house and then shoulders an awesome incendiary weapon and fire-bombs our hero’s house, blasting Wick off the premises but not killing his dog.  Resigned to his fate, Wick sits down with Santino and agrees to carry out one final mission.  The evil Santino wants the seat on an international crime council that his late father willed to his older sister, Gianna D'Antonio (Claudia Gerini of “Deceit”), and he stipulates that our hero must ice her.  Off to Rome flies Wick where he acquires an arsenal that James Bond would envy, a dark tailor-made, bullet-proof suit, and the blueprints to infiltrate Gianna’s inner sanctum and surprise her.  What Wick doesn’t plan for adequately is Gianna’s steadfast bodyguard Cassian (Common of “American Gangster”), and these two titans tangle in a blood and guts tango that ends abruptly after they crash into the sacred Continental Hotel in Rome, run by Julius (Franco Nero of “Django”), where mobsters must cease and desist because it represents the equivalent of a gangland church that grants amnesty.  At this point, Wick realizes that the scheming Santino has double-crossed him.  Santino points out he wouldn’t be much of a brother if he didn’t avenge the murder of his sister.  When his own gunmen cannot liquidate Wick, Santino offers a $7-million-dollar bounty, and hitmen from every corner of the globe swarm after our resilient hero.

Aside from Keanu Reeves’ typically stoic performance, “John Wick: Chapter Two” features a sturdy cast, with Ian McShane reprising his role as Winston, the manager of the New York City Continental Hotel--where mobsters are prohibited from fighting with their adversaries, and Lance Reddick as the accommodating desk clerk Charon.  John Leguizamo appears briefly as the body shop repairman who helped Wick locate his Mustang, and Bridget Moynahan appears in a flashback as Wick’s late wife Helen.  Director Chad Stahelski, who once earned his living as Keanu Reeve’s stunt double, need never look back.  Slated to helm the new “Highlander” reboot, Stahelski keeps things thumping throughout this two-hour plus neo-noir thriller.  The hall of mirrors scene where Wick stalks Santino rivals the original scene in Orson Welles’ iconic thriller “The Lady from Shanghai” (1947).