The Assignment

Big thumbs down. I truly wanted to enjoy <em>'The Assignment'</em> due to Michelle Rodriguez's involvement, but man it is unfortunately a pretty cruddy flick. Rodriguez herself is the film's only noteworthy positive, but only just to be honest - she isn't given much to work with. The premise has potential, though its execution here leaves a lot to be desired. Everything onscreen involving the characters of Sigourney Weaver and Tony Shalhoub bored me tremendously, every time it's just the filmmakers trying to come out looking smart - the dialogue, which is poor overall, is particularly bad for those two. The editing is also awful, the phoney comic book bits are weak and the transitions a very amateur-ish. This 2016 release also has an annoying habit of telling us every single location that a scene takes place, why I do not know - and if you are going to, choose a different font. I know that's an odd thing to mention, but they chose a TV police procedual-esque font, which doesn't fit with the aforementioned attempt at the comic book schtick. This should've been fun. Sadly, it is anything but.

Boring--which is the worst thing that a B-movie can be. Points only for Michelle Rodriguez's prosthetic penis, her natural titties, and Sigourney Weaver's cinematic debasement via thriller cliches. This fauxploitation film doesn't even have the guts to do exploitation right.

A risky movie to make, people on both ends of the political spectrum are going to have things to say about _The_ _Assignment_ without ever having seen it, of that I have no doubt. But personally, and trying to put all that aside, _The_ _Assignment_ is actually halfway decent. It uses a couple of tropes I don't enjoy, for instance it has not one but two separate point of view framing devices, and I got the distinct impression that Sigourney Weaver was only there for maybe one full day of shooting, but I still was able to engage in the story, which was certainly one I hadn't seen on screen before. Between this and _Inconceivable_ I'm having a great month for film titles that are super inappropriate puns. _Final rating:★★½ - Had a lot that appealed to me, didn’t quite work as a whole._