Assassins

"Listen, I'm in way over my head here, mister. I just want out."    - Electra

release year: 1995
genre: action
viewing setting: home Bluray 10/26/18 and 9/6/15 and home DVD, 2/7/09 and 1/10/03

synopsis: Two skilled assassins, one old and weary, the other young and reckless, end up trying to kill each other.

impressions: Pretty good. Any movie that begins with a 30-minute sequence of violence and chases is okay by me. What we have here is a similar plot to the Mechanic: a brash young hitman wants to be the best, so he goes after an older assassin who is about to retire peacefully. The film contains some good action scenes, a decent plot (at times, it had bizarre twists) and good acting for the most part.

principals:
   Robert Rath: experienced assassin, just wants to retire
   Miguel Bain: reckless young assassin, likes thrills and respects no one
   Electra: data thief and cat-lover, in way over her head
   Nicolai: Rath's mentor, who he assassinated 15 years ago
   Electra's neighbors: they lived next to the wrong person
   the Dutch buyers: four guys who weren't careful enough

something this movie has that no other movie has: multiple uses of Apple Powerbooks (they appear to be from the 500 series) for online wheeling, dealing, and assassination contracts

acting: Sylvester Stallone is a level 2 action hero here (level 1 was when he did a lot of hand-to-hand fighting, like in Cobra and Rambo; level 3 is the weak stuff like Daylight.) Antonio Banderas overacts severely; his character was annoying most of the time. Julianne Moore did a good job as the computer hacker caught in-between the two.

final word: Worthy assassin action.

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