Soul Assassin (2001)

User Rating:

4.3/10   

Director:

Laurence Malkin

Writers:

Chad Thumann (written by) &
Laurence Malkin (written by)

Release Date:

24 July 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Thriller | Action

Tagline:

Trained to protect... He is the perfect assassin

Plot:

Kevin Burke a young executive for a multinational investment bank, is a rising star in the Rotterdam office...

Cast

Skeet Ulrich	...	Kevin Burke
Kristy Swanson	...	Tessa Jansen
Derek de Lint	...	Karl Jorgensen
Rena Owen	...	Karina
Antonie Kamerling	...	Karl Jorgensen Jr.
Serge-Henri Valcke	...	Mr. Ficks
Nicholas Irons	...	Gary Knight
Thom Hoffman	...	Inspector Willem
Katherine Lang	...	Rosalind Bremmond
André Arend van de Noord	...	Thorsten Fredriksz
Yorick van Wageningen	...	Local Inspector
Jaap Postma	...	Antonio
Georgina Verbaan	...	Reporter Annemarie Stroo
Jeroen Willems	...	Hector
Monic Hendrickx	...	Mother

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence, language and some sexuality.

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

Netherlands

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Australia:MA | Germany:16 | Netherlands:12 | New Zealand:R18 | Norway:15 | South Korea:18 | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Company:

Parabolic Pictures Inc.

Trivia:

The first feature film in Belgium to be completely digitally finished in high resolution.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Vet hard (2005)

what a disappointment

Beyond an absolutely brilliant performance by Skeet Ulrich as a man trained to be a hit-man for a criminal corporation, there's not much to recommend this film. It's not as terrible as some reviewers remarked - beneath the flashy visuals lies a rather old-fashioned suspense thriller. Unfortunately, the producers were clearly shopping for another "Bourne Identity", and the director, probably a meth-addict, had watched too many John Woo films. I mention this because while I watched the bicycle chase stunts - all too clearly created by the editor rather than the stunt crew - I thought of Jackie Chan's marvelous bike chase in "Project A" and thought to myself, 'gee, that's what this movie needs - Jackie Chan, not John Woo'. But John Woo is the influence here, and since Woo is an arch-stylist, to imitate him you have to have a real schmaltzy but original plot going on beneath the style; and while this film has the schmaltz, it has no originality to speak of. There are glaring references to Hitchcock and Stanley Donen, Samuel Fuller's "Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street" and an obscure thriller based on an Alistair MacLean novel, "Puppet on a Chain" - glaring because the originals were so much better and certainly don't need this sort of 'tribute'.

I won't say this is a bad thriller; some will find it entertaining enough. But it pretends to be so much more - what a disappointment.