Law & Order: Criminal Intent (TV Series) Assassin (2008) User Reviews

Your picture would be on the cover of every magazine in the world

[Mrpalli77 · 8/10 · 3 October 2017]

A political figure in Sri Lanka (Indira Varma), who is on the list to get the Peace Nobel Prize has just landed in NY airport to visit her dying mother. However her real purpose is to set up meetings in order to keep media attention over Tamil independence movement in her homeland. Shortly after a rally, there is an attempted murder in which her assistant is killed by mistake. Detectives put the blame on a bodyguard and then on the woman next to kin. Bad investments in a remote South Pacific island that drained family trust could be the motive, but Logan after watching the video shooting realizes murders have nothing to do with money.

This episode involves an international set, professional killers are hired and FBI participate even if it's not really helping (once they lost track on a sniper, the second time they killed a shooter who could testify).

Inept writing

[goodtobehappy · 15 September 2009]

The setup of this episode is so inept, the plot became irrelevant to me. How on earth Tamil separatists from Sri Lanka could be Muslims with the surname Khan is beyond me. This episode seems like an unintentional version of the "Borat" movie; wrong names, looks, accents etc. No wonder the rest of the world thinks that we Americans are stupid! As it is, the average person knows barely anything about the rest of the world and then t.v. shows like this come along and add to the misconceptions. To the intellectually bankrupt writer in Hollywood: I'm sure "they" all look and sound alike, but if you want to incorporate real world situations into a storyline do some background research.

Mike's Role in "Assassination"

[robertafriedman · 10/10 · 29 June 2008]

As a loyal Law and Order fan, I can say that "Assassination" is one of your best episodes. The plot is politically current with the signature Law and Order "twist". It was

interesting to me as I looked through the various aspects of this episode to see more information that was posted on the tech, Mike. Especially, in this day and age of women taking a more active role, i.e. witness Hillary's bid for the presidency and the positive effect it had on sixteen million women, it is wonderful to see strong, competent women making contributions to solving cases on "Criminal Intent". I was disappointed that Mike's role was not more in depth as I would have liked to find out more of the technical information regarding ballistics that Mike helped detectives with in past cases and I look forward to seeing more of her input in future episodes.

Sri Lankan politics get bloody in New York

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 23 November 2014]

Chris Noth and Julianne Nicholson got themselves a hot potato with this case. An attempted assassination on Indira Varma who is a civil rights leader for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka and known for preaching non violence. It's always those people who are the targets of assassins.

In this case assassins aren't giving up. On the first attempt an assistant to Varma is killed as she took a bullet for Varma. A bodyguard killed the assassin. The assassin was a Sri Lankan immigrant who had some history with the family and the bodyguard. The bodyguard is later killed by a sniper with scope.

If that's not enough a third victim is killed, Varma's brother. This was the weakness of the episode. Had they waited to make another attempt out of the USA the plan might have succeeded. What the hurry was was never explained.

The motive for all this is the thing I will not reveal. But I was not satisfied with how the story handled it.

High quality assassinated

[TheLittleSongbird · 4/10 · 6 May 2021]

A shame. Really genuinely hoped that "Assassin" would be at least a good episode. It did sound interesting, though with traps. Have said more than once about liking Logan as a character. Wheeler's reception has been more mixed, personally am one of those people who doesn't have a problem with her or her interaction with Logan. Season 7 was very uneven but things were actually starting to look up after four very good to outstanding episodes in a row.

Sadly, "Assassin" was a big disappointment and sees the season's quality go significantly backwards. One of the season's worst episodes, the worst Logan and Wheeler episode since "Bombshell" (and possibly worse than that one), the worst 'Criminal Intent' outing since that and one of the show's misfires. "Assassin" is not a completely terrible episode, but a lot of things are done badly and the episode overall is a sloppy mess.

There are good things. The best thing about is Chris Noth as Logan, who as always embodies the character's dry humour, gritty edge and sharp instinct. Julianne Nicholson is subtle without looking bored and contrasts well with Noth in a way that's different to Goren and Eames but they gel well and equally as a team.

Photography while very close up doesn't come over as too static or filmed play-like, while the production values are typically solid and have subtle atmosphere while not being drab and keeping things simple. When the music is used it is haunting and has a melancholic edge that is not overdone.

However, everything else does not work. Saying that the story really doesn't come together is an understatement, actually found it a mess. Found it too over-complicated from trying to cram in too much, glossing over most of it which made events not easy to follow as well as jumping about-like in structure. The pace is dull from a severe lack of tension and suspense and very little about the truth is earth-shattering and not always plausible. Any research is at best sloppy and can border on insensitive.

Dialogue is continually awkward-sounding and lacks tautness. "Assassin" is one of the few 'Criminal Intent' episodes where the supporting performances are not very good at all, actually pretty awful. None of the characters feel like real people, instead little more than overused and flat stereotypes. The ending lacks suspense and is too predictable and contrived and the third murder was unnecessary and rushed over.

In conclusion, very underwhelming. 4/10.