Jamie (Danny Dyer) is an assassin for hire who does a job for brothers John & Lee Alberts (Gary & Martin Kemp respectively). The brothers bought a plot of land to build a club on and were given the assurance from council big-wig Tony Boyd (Robert Kavanagh) that there would be no issues in getting the required planning permission that they needed. When they learn that Boyd is not willing to complete his end of the bargain (after the brothers have already paid him £100,000) they decide that he needs to be taken care of and hires Jamie to complete the task. Complications ensue when Jamie falls in love with the daughter of the man that he's killed and he takes it upon himself to protect her from the brothers who will do everything they can to silence her.
Assassin makes the bold claim on its poster that it is by 'The Makers of Goodfellas' and indeed this film does share one thing in common with Goodfellas and that is that both film share the same executive producer (Barbara De Fina). I suspect that this was a marketing tool employed to try to sucker more people into watching the film or buying the DVD. All I'll say is that Assassin & Goodfellas may share the same producer, but they are worlds apart in terms of quality....
The problems really start with Danny Dyer and to say that his acting is weak would be putting it kindly, but even for him this was bad. He is lifeless and unenthusiastic here and looked as bored as I was through the entirety of the film. It isn't all Dyer's fault though - the script is rather weak and has very little drive to it. It was one of those films that seemed to establish story arcs, but then decided not to follow them through (such as the money held in the dodgy offshore account). The film also features The Kemp brothers who are basically just playing the Krays twins all over again. In itself this doesn't sound too bad and had the film had the brutality and the engaging narrative that The Krays offered then it probably would have made for a much better film. As it is screenwriter J.K Amalou fails to develop John and Lee as characters and gives the Kemps very little to work which results in them almost resorting to self-parody. I also thought it was interesting that a big deal seemed to made about the fact that John was ill only then to find that we're not told what illness he was suffering from or how he injured his leg? These things aren't really important to the story, but it would have been nice if some background had been afforded just to flesh the characters out a bit. In terms of performances, no-one else really made much of an impression on me here although Holly Weston was quite effective in some scenes.
I think the worst thing about this film is that it fails to actually have one strong or effective scene; it's a thriller without thrills and really is just a boring non-event film. Although it's a terrible film the only saving grace is that I only wasted 80 minutes of my life watching this film. Please don't waste any of your own time watching it.
Assassin makes the bold claim on its poster that it is by 'The Makers of Goodfellas' and indeed this film does share one thing in common with Goodfellas and that is that both film share the same executive producer (Barbara De Fina). I suspect that this was a marketing tool employed to try to sucker more people into watching the film or buying the DVD. All I'll say is that Assassin & Goodfellas may share the same producer, but they are worlds apart in terms of quality....
The problems really start with Danny Dyer and to say that his acting is weak would be putting it kindly, but even for him this was bad. He is lifeless and unenthusiastic here and looked as bored as I was through the entirety of the film. It isn't all Dyer's fault though - the script is rather weak and has very little drive to it. It was one of those films that seemed to establish story arcs, but then decided not to follow them through (such as the money held in the dodgy offshore account). The film also features The Kemp brothers who are basically just playing the Krays twins all over again. In itself this doesn't sound too bad and had the film had the brutality and the engaging narrative that The Krays offered then it probably would have made for a much better film. As it is screenwriter J.K Amalou fails to develop John and Lee as characters and gives the Kemps very little to work which results in them almost resorting to self-parody. I also thought it was interesting that a big deal seemed to made about the fact that John was ill only then to find that we're not told what illness he was suffering from or how he injured his leg? These things aren't really important to the story, but it would have been nice if some background had been afforded just to flesh the characters out a bit. In terms of performances, no-one else really made much of an impression on me here although Holly Weston was quite effective in some scenes.
I think the worst thing about this film is that it fails to actually have one strong or effective scene; it's a thriller without thrills and really is just a boring non-event film. Although it's a terrible film the only saving grace is that I only wasted 80 minutes of my life watching this film. Please don't waste any of your own time watching it.