ASSASSIN(S) (56)

Directed by: Mathieu Kassovitz

Starring: Michel Serrault, Mathieu Kassovitz, Mehdi Benoufa

The Pitch: An elderly hitman brings a rather aimless young man into the profession ; and he in turn initiates a 13-year-old boy.

Theo Sez: The same eye for a striking image as in LA HAINE, but nowhere near the same narrative economy or attention to detail : there's a lot of unmotivated unpleasantness (which, to be fair, is partly the point) and a fair bit of skulking around to the strains of Carter Burwell's inimitable creepy-strings-and-piano score. What's great about it is the way it's structured so it only gradually sneaks up on its theme (the rather trite one of TV violence making for violent behaviour) : anyone leaving after the first hour might sum up the film as a darkish comedy about a rather clumsy young man trying to learn the ropes of a new job, except that the job happens to be professional murder - media violence doesn't really come into it, though it's always in the background (characters refer to it, and many scenes include a TV set blaring in the corner). Then, suddenly, the nominal hero gets shunted out of the picture and the focus shifts to the kid - who, being part of the TV-reared generation, growing up in the ghetto with video-games instead of parents, has no trouble at all learning the ropes, and turns the film (in theory, at least) into something ice-cold and terrifying. That it doesn't quite work is because of a certain carelessness, especially in defining the characters - you feel the script could've used another draft or two - and because the flashy approach and self-conscious brutalism (the first word we hear is "Fuck") often seem superficial, especially when it borrows the cartoonish effects of NATURAL BORN KILLERS (like the ultra-violence-as-sitcom gag, complete with canned laughter) ; still an ambitious film - and you have to say, given its uniformly lethal reviews, an under-rated one.