Critic Reviews

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.

The film is wallpapered with beatings, shootings and bloodshed, so its genuine sensitivity to trans issues is welcome and surprising.

(Re)Assignment is ultimately canny in genre-play and unique in its time, factors that don’t necessarily make it great, but, beyond old-man-auteurism apologia, still hold somewhat of a flame in the modern age.

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.

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.

It has no clue what it’s going for.

Weaver’s Kay is a fanatic.

This is a film which doesn’t take itself very seriously, and it will work best with an audience which takes the same approach.

Rodriguez’s transformation is hackneyed and ham-fisted, Hill’s action lacks excitement, unnecessary comic-book panel swipes add “character” – there’s nothing noteworthy about this hunt for retribution.

Because Mr. Hill is still, in most respects, Mr. Hill, a lot of the movie is more watchable than it has a right to be. But ultimately, The Assignment ends up being ridiculous even by its own nonsensical standards.