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The Assignment (2016)

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

• Caroline Chan

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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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Rotten Tomatoes® Score

In its low-rent way, it aims for every frisson, reversal and shock-tactic -- and mostly succeeds.

Like for most action pics, character development is the first casualty.

Stylish spy flick with a surprisingly good cast.

A non-formula spy thriller without the glitz and romanticism usually associated with this genre.

If there's a small saving grace to this crude thriller, it is the work of Montreal-born director Christian Duguay, who shows flashes of real flare.

The plot raises the keenly important question of whether professionals who fight evil may be corrupted by the ruthless means they employ; but the movie takes too much pleasure in sensationalistic digressions to explore this issue very thoroughly.

Quinn is excellent in the dual roles of Jackal and Ramirez.

Additional Info

• Genre : Thriller, Action
• Release Date : September 26, 1997
• Languages : English
• Captions : English, Spanish
• Audio Format : 5.1

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The Assignment  (2016)  Tomboy, a Revenger's Tale/ Revenger

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• Genre: Thriller (more)

When the hitman Frank Kitchen finds himself has underwent a reassignment surgery that turns him into a woman, he sets out to exact revenge on the doctor behind the operation.

• Walter Hill (Director)
• Walter Hill (Story & script)
• Denis Hamill (Story & script)
• Michelle Rodriguez
• Sigourney Weaver
• Anthony LaPaglia
• Caitlin Gerard
• Tony Shalhoub

• Zak Santiago

• Paul McGillion

• Ken Kirzinger
• Darryl Quon
• Caroline Chan
• Adrian Hough

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The Assignment (1997)

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• Review: In <i>The Assignment</i>, Michelle Rodriguez Is a Hitman Caught Between Worlds

Review: In The Assignment , Michelle Rodriguez Is a Hitman Caught Between Worlds

W riter-producer-director and pulp maestro Walter Hill has been rattling cages and delivering quality thrills since the early 1970s. He made his directorial debut with Hard Times (1975), a scrappy, bruising drama starring Charles Bronson as a Depression-era bare-knuckles boxer. He’s also the guy behind the New York City street-gang extravaganza The Warriors (1979), the stolen-gold nail biter Trespass (1992) and The Driver (1978), with Ryan O’Neal, the ruminative getaway drama that helped inspire Edgar Wright’s upcoming car-chase musical Baby Driver .

Hill has influenced plenty of filmmakers—not just Wright, but also Michael Mann and Quentin Tarantino, to name just a few—though he hasn’t been particularly prolific as a director in recent years. His new film, The Assignment, isn’t likely to win him any new friends: Michelle Rodriguez stars as killer-for-hire Frank Kitchen, whose life is upended when he’s captured and knocked out by a gang of baddies, only to wake up wrapped in bandages—and a woman. The surgeon genius behind this transformation is steely-cool Dr. Rachel Kay ( Sigourney Weaver ), a straitjacketed jailbird who tells her own story to an earnest prison shrink played by Tony Shalhoub. Between Dr. Kay’s calculating testimony and and Frank’s sometimes anguished first-person account, delivered in voice-over, we piece together exactly what happened to Frank and how he/she went about wreaking revenge.

Not all of Hill’s movies are great, and The Assignment certainly isn’t. Maybe, in the strictest terms, it isn’t even any good. But even a mediocre Walter Hill film has more style and energy—and a finer sense of the sweet spot between joy and despair—than ninety percent of the action thrillers that get made today. Considering its over-the-top plot mechanics, 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.

In the opening sequence, we see a face in profile, almost entirely obscured by gauze, as a throaty voice launches into a preamble: “I killed a lot of guys…” Before we meet the teller of the tale—as a she, she doesn’t even have a name—we meet the man she used to be. Frank is a Casanova with piercing eyes and soot-black facial hair that could have been lifted from a 1960s dime-store toy, the one where you use a magnetic stylus to arrange piles of metal shavings, encased in a blister-pack bubble, into outlandish beards and sideburns for a cartoon man’s face.

In other words, it looks fake. But even the exaggerated macho-ness of that hair may be a kind of intentional overstatement. Frank goes out and picks up a young woman, Johnnie (Caitlin Gerard). They have hot, rowdy sex, and Johnnie suggests she might like to see Frank again. He’s positioned, perfectly, to be the quintessential clueless, oafish guy who never calls again.

But Frank does call Johnnie again—only he does so after he’s no longer Frank, after his previous identity, with all its he-man hallmarks, has been quite literally cut away. Rodriguez gives a smart, sharp performance here. She’s playing a character that is, almost literally, a cartoon. Every once in a while, Hill freezes a frame and transforms the image into a literal comic-book panel, a way of reminding that we’re watching something beyond reality (and a device he used in his own cut of The Warriors years ago, before it became commonplace). But as Rodriguez plays them, her character’s anguish and confusion are hardly cartoony.

She’s lost in her new identity, but the problem is less that she’s adjusting to being a woman than that she’s learning new things about being human. She adopts a pit-bull named Poncho. He’s as tender-tough as she is, as unsure exactly how he should act or what he should be. Rodriguez has the face of someone who’s just feeling her way along. Everything is a new puzzle, but there are pleasant surprises too. When her face registers relief or pleasure, it’s like the sun elbowing a thundercloud out of the way.

When The Assignment played at the Toronto Film Festival last fall—at that time, it was called (re)Assignment, a much better title, though its earlier working title, Tomboy, was perhaps best of all—it drew criticism for being insensitive toward, or at least cavalier about, transgender issues. But even if you discount the fact that films aren’t required to be public service announcements—in fact, they’re usually pretty bad when they are—the ideas behind The Assignment are more complex than they might seem on the surface. Many of them are also pure Walter Hill: The script was written by journalist, novelist and screenwriter Denis Hamill more than 30 years ago, and it borrows pulp elements of previous Hill films like Johnny Handsome (1989), in which Mickey Rourke plays a deformed gangster whose face is transformed by plastic surgery.

In Hill’s movies, men make mistakes right and left, and suffer for them. In The Assignment, Frank doesn’t choose to become a woman, and he desperately wants not to be one. But what if his enforced rebirth represents a second chance, a chance to be better? That’s one of the ideas The Assignment, in its sometimes awkward way, flirts with. It also crawls through the dust toward another cruel reality: Maybe it takes a woman who used to be a man to understand just how much of a man’s world this really is.

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Tv/streaming, collections, chaz's journal, great movies, contributors, the assignment.

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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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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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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.

Critics Reviews

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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Having spent nearly three decades in the industry, actress Claudia Ferri booked her first role in the feature film "The Assignment", where she learned invaluable lessons from the late Donald Sutherland that have stayed with her throughout her career. You've seen Claudia in AMC's "The Killing", USA's "Queen of the South", and in Apple TV's new period comedy-drama series "Palm Royale." Today, Claudia shares her experience in the industry as an actor of multi-ethnic background, how she approaches characters in positions of power, the challenges of having minimal dialogue within an ensemble cast, and gives listeners permission to allow their artistry to begin in what she calls, "the awkward phase." These are the unforgettable stories that landed Claudia Ferri right here. Credits:  Palm Royale Queen of the South Bad Blood Cerebrum The Killing Rogue Durham County Unité 9 Longmire The Assignment THAT ONE AUDITION'S LINKS: For exclusive content surrounding this and all podcast episodes, sign up for our amazing newsletter at AlyshiaOchse.com. And don't forget to snap and post a photo while listening to the show and tag me: @alyshiaochse & @thatoneaudition THE BRIDGE FOR ACTORS: Become a WORKING ACTOR THE PRACTICE TRACK: Membership to Practice Weekly PATREON: @thatoneaudition CONSULTING: Get 1-on-1 advice for your acting career from Alyshia Ochse COACHING: Get personalized coaching from Alyshia on your next audition or role INSTAGRAM: @alyshiaochse INSTAGRAM: @thatoneaudition WEBSITE: AlyshiaOchse.com ITUNES: Subscribe to That One Audition on iTunes SPOTIFY: Subscribe to That One Audition on Spotify STITCHER: Subscribe to That One Audition on Stitcher EPISODE CREDITS: WRITER: Erin McCluskey WEBSITE & GRAPHICS: Chase Jennings ASSISTANT: Elle Powell SOCIAL OUTREACH: Alara Ceri

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Film explores different take on westerns.

You’ll see plenty of cowboy hats and horses in the critically-acclaimed new drama ''National Anthem,'' but first-time director Luke Gilford says the film both embraces and challenges conventions of the classic Western.

You’ll see plenty of cowboy hats and horses in the critically-acclaimed new drama "National Anthem," but first-time director Luke Gilford says the film both embraces and challenges conventions of the classic Western.

"From the very beginning, I wanted to make a Western for our new world," says the writer-director. "Most often, Westerns are really about violence as opposed to love, and so I was looking at other films that sort of explore more tenderness and more of a spiritual journey for the character in the West."

The film has already won raves at South by Southwest and the Toronto International Film Festival. Charlie Plummer stars as a young man whose new job at a ranch leads him to the exciting and diverse world of the queer rodeo circuit. And, of course, starring in a movie about rodeo means learning the ropes … literally.

"In my wildest dreams was I a cowboy in another life," laughs the actor. "It was very much just in my fantasies – never in reality – so, I was just really grateful that Luke let me show up and just get to live out my fantasies!"

Cast and crew shot the film in New Mexico, becoming as tightly bonded a group as their characters are on-screen.

"When we were filming on the ranch, none of us had cell phone service, so we really had to sit and talk to each other," says Eve Lindley. "It was really kind of a dream to be part of this family."

"There is something about going to camp, basically, and moving to a new, lovely town in New Mexico and immersing yourself in a whole other thing," adds co-star Mason Alexander Park.

"National Anthem" is open in select theaters nationwide — including Atlanta’s Tara Theatre — on Friday.  For more information on the film, click here .

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