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The Assignment

Coming Soon

Starring: ,

Michelle Rodriguez plays an assassin who undergoes an involuntary sex change operation in The Assignment, a film so repulsive it underwent multiple name changes just to hide its transploitation.
If not for Sigourney Weaver’s amusingly off-kilter performance as a demented plastic surgeon seeking revenge, I’m not sure why else anyone would want to watch Walter Hill’s long-gestating revenge project. The film pauses along its narrative to allow Weaver to explain her motive: Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez) murdered one of her associates and she took it quite personal, choosing to remove Kitchen’s man bits (yes, Rodriguez dons a prosthetic) and adding boobs instead of, you know, just killing Kitchen. Bad guys…am I right? Poor Rodriguez does the best she can, but her/his makeup is disturbingly awful. Kitchen wakes from his involuntary surgery and naturally begins freaking out. Rodriguez spends an obnoxious chunk of the film running around town in an open robe, but she eventually reunites with an old girlfriend, who is curiously level headed about her lover’s sudden sex change. Kitchen confides in her but she has ulterior motives of her own. Kitchen must now watch his back and hunt down the doctor.
The Assignment is so over-the-top ridiculous, one must wonder if Hollywood truly is running out of ideas, except this idea has been simmering in Hill’s mind for over 40 years. This movie takes an identity and life saving surgical procedure and flips into a sort of punishment. Perhaps this is just Hill poking fun at the revenge genre, but if I were you, I’d simply avoid it.

The Assignment is streaming now on the following services:
Movie Reelist Contributor: Chris Giroux
Chris Giroux is founder and editor-in-charge at Movie Reelist, an entertainment news and review blog serving the most fanatic moviegoers. Chris started his publication in Detroit in 2010 and has since reviewed hundreds of films and interviewed numerous talent across the country. He is an avid film festival attendee and red carpet photographer, having shot the likes of Steven Spielberg, Bill Murray, Mark Hamill, and more. Chris grew up in New Mexico, where he studied mass media writing while working in post-production and multimedia authoring. It is also where he discovered Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from New York, resulting in an unhealthy Kurt Russell obsession.

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