assignment 2016

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‘the assignment’: film review | tiff 2016.

Sigourney Weaver stars as a twisted surgeon and Michelle Rodriguez as the man she turns into a woman in Walter Hill's '(Re)Assignment.'

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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A demented pulp fiction about a brilliant surgeon who creates a Frankenstein monster by performing a sex change on the scumbag assassin who killed her brother, The Assignment (previously titled (Re)Assignment ) is, by any objective standard, a disreputable slice of bloody sleaze. But there’s also no question that veteran director and co-writer Walter Hill knows exactly what he’s doing here, wading waist-deep into Frank Miller Sin City territory and using genre tropes to explore some provocatively, even outrageously transgressive propositions. For longtime fans of the filmmaker, this Canadian-made low-budget revenge yarn will be embraced as Hill’s most entertaining and, on the terms it sets for itself, accomplished film in some time. It’s an instant cult item.

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In a public climate arguably more saturated with discussions of gender than ever in the history of the world, Hill and his co-screenwriter Denis Hamill make subversive creative use of the topic in ways that are both brainy and amusingly provocative. The catalyst for all the mayhem is genius, but now defrocked plastic surgeon Dr. Rachel Kay ( Sigourney Weaver in intimidatingly imposing mode), whose revenge upon low-life hitman Frank Kitchen, who took out her brother, is to capture him and apply her expertise by turning him into a woman (Michelle Rodriguez); in a world where transgenderism is now an accepted fact of life, this is one example where it is neither voluntary nor desired.

The Bottom Line A deliciously transgressive and smart classic B movie.

Intercutting between Rachel’s interrogation by shrink Dr. Ralph Green (Tony Shalhoub ) and the hatching of the now-female Frank’s extensive revenge-taking for what’s been done to him/her physically results in a great deal of exposition. But Hill keeps it lively and interesting, on one hand by supplying the brilliant Rachel with lots of blunt and high-toned commentary about how and why she’s done what she did; on an intellectual level, she and Hannibal Lecter would be an even match.

On the other, there’s the spectacle of watching Frank come to grips — and this is meant literally — with “her” own new body. Without any self-consciousness, Rodriguez enacts a thorough physical self-inspection from top to bottom, and her former tough guy character remains infuriated by having been deprived of the equipment he used to enjoy. All the same, she eventually reconnects with a young nurse and part-time good-times girl (Caitlin Gerard) “he” had hooked up with just prior to his unwanted conversion.

A good part of the action involves the extensive revenge Frank exacts upon a local San Francisco gangster, Honest John (Anthony LaPaglia ), for an earlier betrayal; plenty of bad guys get blown away here in bloody fashion, and Frank really is remorseless. In this world, much of it set in San Francisco’s Chinatown (actually shot in Vancouver), everyone is guilty — or, to paraphrase Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven , everyone’s got it coming.

Hill, production designer Renee Read and cinematographer James Liston immediately establish and then maintain the look of a seedy urban world defined by dirty browns and blacks, as well as by dimly lit streets, a lonely diner and a seedy old hotel; this is as noir as it gets these days. On numerous occasions, sequences end with visual punctuation courtesy of graphic comics-style illustrations.

The somber tone and low-end production values may not be exactly in tune with young neo-noir enthusiasts, but more seasoned fans of the genre and the filmmaker will recognize and embrace Hill’s use of noir to play with and comment on topical issues in a deliciously subversive way, political correctness be damned. At the same time, however, a witty intellectual loftiness hovers over everything thanks to the erudite remarks ceaselessly pouring from the mouth of Weaver’s doctor, who likes to confound her interrogator with frequent references to Shakespeare.   

Weaver’s terrifically articulated performance neatly establishes the top side of the film’s high/low dynamic. For her part of the equation, Rodriguez, with momentary exceptions, maintains a virulent charge of fury, anger and disgust with what’s been done to him/her, something that quite plausibly drives the vengeful mission. It’s a story of two killers, one of whom operates from the brain, the other from more basic instincts, and together they’re quite a pair for one movie.

Venue: Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentation)

Production: SBS Films

Cast: Michelle Rodriguez, Tony Shalhoub , Anthony LaPaglia , Caitlin Gerard, Sigourney Weaver

Director: Walter Hill

Screenwriters: Walter Hill, Denis Hamill

Producers: Said Ben Said, Michel Merkt

Director of photography: James Liston

Production designer: Renee Read

Costume designer: Ellen Anderson

Editor: Philip Norden

Music: Giorgio Moroder , Raney Shockne

Casting: Sheila Jaffe , Candice Elzinga

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Ace assassin Frank Kitchen is double crossed by gangsters and falls into the hands of rogue surgeon known as The Doctor who turns him into a woman. The hitman, now a hitwoman, sets out for revenge, aided by a nurse named Johnnie who also has secrets.

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The Assignment

Cast & crew.

Michelle Rodriguez

Frank Kitchen

Sigourney Weaver

Dr. Rachel Jane

Tony Shalhoub

Dr. Ralph Galen

Caitlin Gerard

Anthony LaPaglia

Honest John

Violent thriller irresponsibly tackles transgender themes.

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The assignment.

2016 Directed by Walter Hill

A revenger's tale.

Ace assassin Frank Kitchen is double crossed by gangsters and falls into the hands of rogue surgeon known as The Doctor who turns him into a woman. The hitman, now a hitwoman, sets out for revenge, aided by a nurse named Johnnie who also has secrets.

Michelle Rodriguez Sigourney Weaver Tony Shalhoub Caitlin Gerard Anthony LaPaglia Paul McGillion Ken Kirzinger Paul Lazenby Zak Santiago Adrian Hough Alex Zahara Chad Riley Jason Asuncion Darryl Quon Hugo Ateo Sergio Osuna Terry Chen Lauro David Chartrand-DelValle Caroline Chan Lia Lam Eltie Pearce

Director Director

Walter Hill

Producers Producers

Saïd Ben Saïd Michel Merkt Sarah Borch-Jacobsen Kevin Chneiweiss Todd Giroux John Lind Harvey Kahn

Writers Writers

Denis Hamill Walter Hill

Casting Casting

Candice Elzinga Sheila Jaffe Sandra Couldwell

Editor Editor

Phil Norden

Cinematography Cinematography

James Liston

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

John Lind Annabelle Wilczur

Lighting Lighting

James M. Jackson Cameron Root Jason Weir

Camera Operators Camera Operators

Dale H. Jahraus Bruce Borland

Production Design Production Design

Set decoration set decoration.

Meredith Garstin A. Blair Stevens

Special Effects Special Effects

Visual effects visual effects.

Geena Renk Kris Wood Brent Boulet Jess Brown

Stunts Stunts

Jason Asuncion Melissa R. Stubbs Paul Lazenby

Composers Composers

Raney Shockne Giorgio Moroder

Sound Sound

James Fonnyadt Bryson Dodwell Bill Mellow Kelly Cole Daniel Cardona

Costume Design Costume Design

Ellen Anderson

Makeup Makeup

Courtney Frey Joel Echallier Agnieszka Echallier

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Jessica Rain

SBS Productions

Canada France USA

Releases by Date

11 sep 2016, 08 jun 2016, 27 apr 2017, 19 oct 2017, 23 nov 2017, 03 mar 2016, 23 mar 2017, 02 may 2017, 07 jun 2017, 03 apr 2016, releases by country.

• Premiere Toronto International Film Festival
• Theatrical M/16

South Korea

• Theatrical 18
• Digital 16 DVD & Bluray
• Physical 15 DVD
• Digital R internet

95 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Sally Jane Black 12

CW: HRT/transition-related surgery

We are not born into the wrong body. We are born into the wrong society.

As I take hormones to alter my body, I am not gaining a new body. My body is naturally reacting to the estrogen and testosterone-suppressors I am putting into it. It's still the same body I have always had. It's a different shape. It's softer. But it's the same body I have had for 35 years. When I get the surgery I need, I will not be losing my body, either. This is the right body for me. My transformation is merely one of presentation. It is no more radical than any other bodily changes a person undergoes.

We are not born…

Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★½ 10

Action! - The Unlikely Rumble: Hill v Hyams

So we end the first half of our combat with Hill returning to the vengeance genre, bringing his Western sensibilities to a picture where guns and retribution are the order of the day.

Michelle Rodriguez is great in this role, while her first appearance as a "man" was laughably poor. The beard and everything looked terribly fake, and it was even funnier that she was acknowledged twice in the closing credits. Now, having said that, when the wicked revengeful doctor, nicely played by Weaver, completed the "sex change" on Michelle's character Frank, Rodriguez did an great job modulating her voice and making it more rougher, and even as she leaned over and…

Review by nathaxnne [hiatus <3] ★★★★½ 12

100% Ray Blanchard's fault Signourney Weaver has to be out here force-femming mob hit men into Michelle Rodriguez to obtain cast-iron proof that gender dysphoria is an innate condition irreducible to paraphilia in the year of our lord 2016, an obvious fact known to science in the 19th Century and then violently memory-holed as needed by whatever variety of fascist forgetting this was expedient for ever since. If nothing else, The Assignment might be useful to watch with clueless boomer (grand)parents in order to get them to think constructively about the experience of gender dysphoria??? U could tell them before sitting down to watch that there was a reason u checked Girlfight out of Blockbuster so many times and that…

Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★½

So cheap, so in love with its own lurid pulp. It is as unplausible as its underworld, which is part of what so pleasurable about it. That cheapstake vile movie atmosphere is the movie, pure surface ugliness that never suggests the real thing, but just drown in its own texture. The kind of preposterous film with a mad doctor quoting Shakespeare and Poe for added gravitas that everyone treats for the bullshit it actually is. Rodriguez's Frank Kitchen is so good at what he does, The Assignment is never an actual an action movie, what it does purpose is a double narrative crashing on itself (Hill's usual hunter/hunted motif taking to an unique lurid extreme), the idea of identity becoming…

Review by matt lynch ★★★

Hill comes right out and says that this should stand on style alone...it doesn't (and yikes some of those animated transitions are dire), but his (somewhat clueless, but still) insistence on keeping this a pulpy shock noir is kinda admirable.

Review by Dawson Joyce ★

With a premise this risky, unique, and thought-provoking and a more than capable cast and crew onboard, it is such a shame to see The Assignment come out not an enjoyably trashy piece of exploitation fun but instead a brutally boring, utterly lifeless mess of a film lacking in both strong characterization and entertaining action, and the fact that this was a passion project of director Walter Hill since the 70's makes the joyless and mundane end result even more baffling. Also, this film officially disproves the idiotic to begin with theory that lead star Michelle Rodriguez looks too masculine.

Review by Jesse Snoddon ★ 2

"It's hard to go back to Frank Kitchen when you look like a chick"

After stupidly named hitman Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez) takes out Dr. Rachel Kay's (Sigourney Weaver) brother, Kay enacts revenge by having Frank abducted and performing a sex change operation on him against his will. 

As a fan of Walter Hill's movies, it pains me to say this is awful. Without even getting into the more controversial elements (to the film's credit Hill seems to be trying to make the point that we are who we are inside and physically changing someone won't alter that if it's against there will...but Hill is likely not the person to have this conversation and in over his head on that…

Review by comrade_yui 2

walter hill not being a provocative reactionary dumbass makes this way less exploitative than it actually should be. it's jam-packed with several elements of his previous works, and i can't help but see this as a return to form after his dreadful output since the end of the 90s. it's slick, peppered with punchy dialogue and efficiently constructed in the way that his best films are. at the time this came out, i probably would have despised it just from the premise alone, but at this point it feels really harmless compared to the relatively high toxicity that we get from zahler, snyder and bay. reading interviews with hill and seeing the actual text here, it's clear that this film…

Review by Biscoito18 ½ 3

I'd never realized how feminine Michelle Rodriguez was until seeing her trying to pass as a biological man.

It's impossible to buy the illusion, not only because she is a very famous actress, but also because the make up is terrible and her silhouette, voice and walk remains the same.

Looks more like a bad comedy sketch (they even gave her a hilarious CGI penis and hairy chest!!!) but the tone is so dead serious that nothing works properly. It's a VERY strange movie with a very strange editing too.

Trying to adjust the tone, they even add some cartoons here and there to give a grindhouse/hq vibe to it, but ends up being another lame aspect in the weak…

Review by Rachel

Shame on you Sigourney 

Why the name change to Tomboy on UK Netflix? Like it don’t make it a good movie

Review by Cinema_Strikes ★★½ 2

This came out to a lot of kerfluffle - seemingly mostly from people who hadn’t seen the movie - about whether it was offensive in its treatment of trans rights, but hardly seems worth the bother of getting offended. It’s a fairly bog standard pulpy action revenge thriller, and the central issue of Michelle Rodriguez getting forcibly gender swapped doesn’t seem to have any legitimate bearing on trans issues - the character is not a trans person, but someone who had their body altered without their consent (more akin to the Remade in China Mieville’s Bas-Lag series), which seems an entirely different issue, at least to this admittedly ignorant viewer. I’m sure I’m missing plenty of nuance, but honestly this…

Review by Scout Tafoya ★★★½

www.rogerebert.com/mzs/the-unloved-part-47-the-assignment

Hill snapped into place on another level for me when I was watching this and remembered the scene in The Driver where he smashes up that gorgeous orange Mercedes. I watched it with my dad when I was in college and neither of us understood it. Years pass and I'm watching this and I'm thinking about other moments in Hill films where characters try to sort of shed their skin because of Hill's existential body dysmorphia and my brain feeds me the scene and says without hesitation "Well there's that scene in The Driver when O'Neal destroys the car because he can't tear his skin off and reveal the bottomless void in his soul." Like somehow, at some…

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• Tomboy, a Revenger's Tale
• (Re)Assignment

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• "A deliciously transgressive and smart classic B movie."  Todd McCarthy : The Hollywood Reporter
• "[It] gracelessly mashes together hardboiled crime-melodrama cliches and an unintentionally funny 'Oh no! I'm a chick now!!' gender-change narrative hook."  Dennis Harvey : Variety
• "The filmmaker’s touch is completely lost here, and the only danger the film winds up posing is to the time spent by those who choose to watch it."  Kevin Jagernauth : The Playlist
• "The film's dialogue is entertainingly hard-boiled, and the performances knowing without ever being arch."  Keith Uhlich : Slant
• "Walter Hill (...) has enough skill and personality going for it to make it worth checking out, even if it doesn’t quite live up (...) to its borderline sleazy premise (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"  Peter Sobczynski : rogerebert.com
• "Gender-switching hitman thriller is staggering misfire (...) a strong contender for 2016’s worst movie (…) Rating: ★ (out of 5)"  Benjamin Lee : The Guardian

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The Assignment

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Rent The Assignment on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

The Assignment 's premise is bizarrely intriguing; unfortunately, it's also just one of many ingredients fumbled in a disappointing misfire from director Walter Hill.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Walter Hill

Michelle Rodriguez

Frank Kitchen

Sigourney Weaver

Dr. Rachel Kay

Tony Shalhoub

Dr. Ralph Galen

Caitlin Gerard

Anthony LaPaglia

Honest John Hartunian

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“ The Assignment ” is a film that arrives in theaters having already inspired vast outpourings of anger from two groups —the transgender community, which appears to be offended by its very premise, and action buffs, who are put off both by the premise (albeit for different reasons) and what they feel is a lazy execution that fails to offer the requisite thrills. While I am sympathetic to the complaints of both groups (somewhat more for the former) and recognize that it is indeed deeply flawed in many areas, I cannot quite agree with either. This is a modestly scaled B-movie by one of the best genre filmmakers of our time, Walter Hill , that has enough skill and personality going for it to make it worth checking out, even if it doesn’t quite live up (or down, depending on your perspective) to its borderline sleazy premise.

And what is that premise, you ask? In a nutshell, Frank Kitchen ( Michelle Rodriguez … just keep reading) is a ruthless San Francisco hitman who runs afoul of Dr. Rachel Kay ( Sigourney Weaver ), a brilliant but deranged surgeon who has lost her license for conducting various rogue experiments. Frank kills Dr. Kay’s brother, and the good doctor seeks vengeance and experimental research into the importance of physical identity on the psyche. She arranges with crime boss Honest John Hartunian ( Anthony LaPaglia ) to have him grab Frank and bring him to her secret lab, where she proceeds to perform gender reassignment surgery on him. Dr. Kay asserts that the surgery will take away Frank’s desire to kill. Needless to say, Frank sees things a little differently, and, once she discovers that the surgery cannot be reversed, she methodically hatches a grisly revenge plot on everyone involved with her transformation from Honest John and his goons all the way up to Dr. Kay. Helping Frank in her quest is Johnnie ( Caitlin Gerard ), a nurse with whom Frank had a one-night stand before his transformation and who doesn’t seem particularly nonplussed by recent developments, though it seems that she may be harboring a few secrets of her own.

At first blush, one can easily understand why the transgender community might be a tad put off by the very existence of “The Assignment,” but the actual film is nowhere near as offensive as it might initially seem. For one thing, the film as a whole is so willfully and deliberately pulpy in tone (I could easily see a short version of this tale fitting perfectly into the confines of a “ Sin City ” film) that it is hard to take the alleged provocations on display with any degree of seriousness—this is a film that is so archetypal in nature that the sort-of sweethearts at its center are literally named Frank(ie) and Johnnie. Additionally, to suggest that Frank is meant to represent all transgender people is nonsense because he is clearly not one himself, and, outside of the obvious physical construct, little about him changes after undergoing his forced surgery. I would also point out that no less of a filmmaker than Pedro Almodovar used the notion of unwilling gender reassignment surgery as a plot point in his own unabashed genre exercise, “ The Skin I Live In ,” and no one seemed especially put off by it even though the deployment there was arguably more questionable from a taste perspective than what is seen here.

That said, “The Assignment” is still a problematic work in many ways from a purely cinematic perspective. The screenplay by Hill & Denis Hamill (which Hill has been toying with since the late ‘70s) is an awkward construction with much of the story presented in a series of flashbacks, as the now-incarcerated Dr. Kay recounts the story to another psychiatrist ( Tony Shalhoub ). This concept is especially problematic since Hill is at his best when he allows characters to define themselves purely through their actions instead of relentlessly explaining themselves as they do here. The film also screams out for a more overtly stylized visual treatment in the vein of something like his great “ Streets of Fire ”—a fact underlined by the occasional bits of black-and-white photography and comic book-style transitions—that might have also helped to underscore the kind of pulpy approach Hill was clearly going for. Another big problem, at least at first, is the casting of Michelle Rodriguez as Frank. There is nothing wrong with her performance but the early scenes in which she portrays the male version of Frank, complete with a wildly unconvincing beard and a lingering close-up of his genitalia for good measure, do inspire a few bad laughs right when the film is trying to establish itself. For some viewers, it may never recover from that.

For those who can get beyond that, “The Assignment” contains plenty of points of interest. Sigourney Weaver is pretty much a blast throughout as the snidely condescending doctor who sets all of the events into motion. As for Rodriguez, once she sheds the beard, her performance improves greatly. Obviously, we know she can do the steely-eyed badass stuff as well as anyone else but she also gets a couple of quieter moments amidst the chaos where she displays a more vulnerable side without stepping out of character—in one, she consults a doctor about whether the surgery can be reversed and begins shyly inquiring about certain personal details regarding her new equipment. In the other, she is about to go to bed with Johnnie when she realizes that she has no idea of how to approach lovemaking from a female perspective. (“You’ll do fine,” she is reassured in a line that is both funny and strangely touching.) As for Hill, while he is clearly working with a lower budget than usual here (with Vancouver substituting, not too convincingly, for San Francisco), he is still able to establish a convincingly noir attitude toward the material and the scenes of violence are done in a spare and economical style that is a relief from the over-the-top pyrotechnics of most current action films. (He also gets bonus points for employing Giorgio Moroder to deliver a cheerfully retro synth score.)

It is easy to see how the dramatic excesses of the plot could prove offensive to the transgender community, though I can just as easily see “The Assignment” one day becoming a cult favorite in the way that the once-controversial “ Cruising ” would eventually find some fans within the gay community that once scorned it. As an exercise in unapologetic pulp fiction, it gets the job done in a smart, efficient and slyly subversive manner. As the latest entry in the Walter Hill filmography, it definitely belongs on the second tier. Even though it may not be the equal to a classic like “ The Driver ” or “Streets of Fire,” it will do until that next masterwork does come along.

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

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Brian Tallerico

You'll Never Find Me

Sheila o'malley.

Carol Doda Topless at the Condor

Marya e. gates.

Stress Positions

Film credits.

The Assignment (2017)

Rated R for graphic nudity, violence, sexuality, language and drug use.

Michelle Rodriguez as Frank Kitchen / Tomboy

Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Rachel Kay

Tony Shalhoub as Dr. Ralph Galen

Caitlin Gerard as Johnnie

Anthony LaPaglia as Honest John Hartunian

Paul McGillion as Paul Wincott

• Walter Hill

Writer (story)

• Denis Hamill

Cinematographer

• James Liston
• Phil Norden
• Giorgio Moroder
• Raney Shockne

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Beautiful, interesting, incredible cinema.

THE ASSIGNMENT

Following an ace assassin who is double crossed by gangsters and falls into the hands of rogue surgeon known as The Doctor who turns him into a woman. The hitman now a hitwoman sets out for revenge, aided by a nurse named Johnnie who also has secrets.

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The Assignment

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• Detroit News Adam Graham "The Assignment" is an embarrassment all around, a murky, regrettable piece of gutter cinema. Next year's Razzie Awards race starts here.
• Seattle Times Soren Andersen This is perhaps the angriest movie Hill - longtime specialist in tough-guy fare such as "The Driver," "Last Man Standing," "Red Heat" and "Bullet to the Head" - has ever made.
• AV Club Ignatiy Vishnevetsky Calling it disappointing would be an understatement.
• RogerEbert.com Peter Sobczynski Has enough skill and personality going for it to make it worth checking out, even if it doesn't quite live up (or down, depending on your perspective) to its borderline sleazy premise.
• MovieFreak.com Sara Michelle Fetters Hill, working with co-writer Denis Hamill, is going through the motions as far as the main revenge storyline is concerned.
• ScreenCrush Matt Singer Should be sent back for its own experimental surgery.
• Slant Magazine Chuck Bowen Walter Hill and Michelle Rodriguez seem to share Frank's confusion over the precise difference between cosmetic and biological reality.
• TIME Magazine Stephanie Zacharek The Assignment isn't quite as nutso and passionate as it ought to be. Even the violence, gritty at times, feels a little impersonal and detached. But the film's tawdry precision is compelling by itself.
• Los Angeles Times Michael Rechtshaffen There's howlingly awful and then there's "The Assignment," a thoroughly ridiculous, numbingly slow neo-noir thriller about a low-life hit man forcibly given gender reassignment surgery by a vengeful doctor.
• New York Times Glenn Kenny The tricksy structure doesn't have much of a payoff (even though Mr. Hill constructs sequences with deft fluidity). And the role of the surgically altered assassin defeats poor Ms. Rodriguez.
• Village Voice Chris Packham Rodriguez absolutely tears it up as a stomping, cussing nuclear core of male swagger, both before and after the surgery.
• TheWrap Alonso Duralde Reprehensible, yes, but it's also dull and inept. Fans of Walter Hill should treat his latest effort like the kind of car crash from which it's best to avert one's eyes.
• Film Comment Magazine Nathan Lee The Assignment is not so nave as to presume that "moral and political considerations" are irrelevant to its effect, but once you wrap your head around the premise the effect is more or less played out.
• BuzzFeed News Alison Willmore It's too clunky to be any kind of real provocation.
• Flavorwire Jason Bailey Politics of sex and gender aside, '(re)ASSIGNMENT' is junk.
• Slant Magazine Keith Uhlich The film's dialogue is entertainingly hard-boiled, and the performances knowing without ever being arch.
• Variety Dennis Harvey Gracelessly mashes together hardboiled crime-melodrama cliches and an unintentionally funny "Oh no! I'm a chick now!!" gender-change narrative hook.
• Hollywood Reporter Todd McCarthy For longtime fans of the filmmaker, this Canadian-made low-budget revenge yarn will be embraced as Hill's most entertaining and, on the terms it sets for itself, accomplished film in some time. It's an instant cult item.
• Boston Herald James Verniere Rodriguez and Weaver are riveting. This lurid B-movie has cult following written all over it.
• SFist Rain Jokinen Hill has been mulling The Assignment's story since the 1970's, and that in itself may prove a cautionary tale: If it's taken you almost 50 years to finally get your story made into a movie, it probably wasn't that great of a story to begin with.

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