A One Mann’s Movies review of “Assassin Club” (2023).
We seem to have a slew of films about global assassination groups this month. From “John Wick Chapter 4” through “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” to now “Assassin Club”. While this tries to go for the glossy trappings of those first two films, this one looks more “Bean” than “Bond” or “Bourne”.
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
Plot Summary:
Morgan (Henry Golding) is a trained assassin working under his handler Caldwell (Sam Neill). But having met the love of his life, Portuguese teacher Sophie (Daniela Melchior), he wants out. But someone looking for revenge has it in for the team of assassins, and puts million dollar bounties on all of their heads: with them being the assassins to carry out the hits!
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC: “Strong bloody violence, language, brief sexual threat”).
Talent:
Starring: Henry Golding, Sam Neill, Noomi Rapace, Daniela Melchior, Jimmy Jean-Louis.
Directed by: Camille Delamarre.
Written by: Thomas Dunn.
Twitter Handle: #AssassinClub.
Eyes on the prize. The ‘last job’ for Morgan (Henry Golding) (Source: Paramount Pictures)
“Assassin Club” Review:
Positives:
- There are a few good action scenes in the movie. The best is an ambulance / police car chase in Prague ending in an explosive bridge finale.
- It was good to see Sam Neill doing his stuff back on the big screen again, outside of a lightweight Jurassic World role! While talking about the acting, I was recently having had a real moan about Daniela Melchior’s performance in the woeful “Marlowe“. But I should reset the balance a little by commenting that Melchior is a good deal better here as the girlfriend in peril: cute, personable and believable.
- The concept behind the story – of trained killers all assigned to kill each other – is a good one.
Negatives:
- This is a director keen on shaky-hand-cam footage. And that makes the action extremely difficult to follow at times. For example, there was one point, after an action scene in a morgue, when Morgan seems to be captured by the Interpol forces led by Noomi Rapace’s character. But then, no, he’s free and I have no idea why or what happened.
- The script sets up a moment of extreme peril in the finale… certain death for Sophie (Daniela Melchior) and Morgan (Henry Golding). But then all the peril inexplicably goes away! (See the Spoiler Section below the trailer).
Summary Thoughts on “Assassin Club”
It has the makings of a watchable B-movie thriller romp, but the execution is decidedly “meh”. In particular, some script choices seem completely inexplicable and stupid. Which is a shame, since Henry Golding is a personable star that – aside from his breakout in “Crazy Rich Asians” – doesn’t seem to have really hit his stride.
The closing scene seems designed to prepare for a sequel if the first film is a success. If I was the production team, I wouldn’t be holding my breath.
[fblike]
Trailer for “Assassin Club”
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaMAMaY7InY .
Spoiler Section:
Don’t read past this point if you’ve not seen the movie.
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NO, SERIOUSLY!
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So – WTF was WITH that ending with the trip-wire bomb?? I mean, before we get to the detonation – or lack thereof – the concept of the set-up seems ludicrous. Inspector Leon (Jimmy Jean-Louis) is there but is then shot next to Morgan. But what does Morgan urge Leon to do? Crawl the foot or two back to him and hold the trip wire so the able-bodied Morgan can rescue his beloved? No! We are to believe that the better idea is to encourage the mortally wounded Leon to crawl over the floor to the bath, pull himself up and then lift the deadweight of the drowned Sophie out of the bath onto the floor! Sorry, but no, no, no!!
Then we have the bomb. What was supposed to have happened? Surely Falk would have set the thing to explode anyway when it got to 00:00:00. But it didn’t. Did the bomb just fail to go off? But then Morgan didn’t seem remotely surprised that that happened! In fact, the whole set up allowed him the chance to run out into the street and shoot Falk in the heart. And she knew how long the bomb timer had and wasn’t even trying to walk away at any sort of speed! #stupid
The very definition of a damp squib of an ending.
