Assassins - Die Killer

Decent fun for the late era of Stallone's work, those 132 minutes go by pretty fast. Sly is here again the way we like him, i.e. Mr. Stone-Face, Banderas, on the other hand, does the whole facial range, and I quite liked his nervous killer. But as a whole is not worthy of 4*, even if the authors had spared us of that stupid ending. (28.09.2003)

A thrilling battle between Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas. The former’s wooden acting skillfully served him this time. But what deserves the biggest praise is Banderas' performance. He is so devilish and charismatic at the same time that he instills fear. He just looks at you and his expression says more than 10 words from Stallone. These brilliantly contrasting actors, however, clash in a film that loses steam towards the end. The window scene is still alright, but the final surprise could have been left out. Nevertheless, it is still an enjoyable flick. (08.11.2003)

I refuse disappointment, because such a word just doesn't fit Richard Donner. Actually, I had more than good fun. Surprisingly, however, this is not so much due to Donner's direction or the thrilling action sequences, but solely to the two leads, whose roles were tailor-made for them. Stallone is flawless a gentleman-assassin, as well as his properly deranged adversary Antonio Banderas, I liked him a lot, he gives a great performance. The runtime exceeds two hours, but everything is presented so quickly and entertainingly that the film works quite well even as an action diversion, and before you know it, the closing credits are flashing on the screen. If you like crime movies as much as I do and if you don't know how to get out of your boredom, Assassins should be the best and most effective choice. (01.11.2012)

This is so beautifully, wonderfully stupid it's irresistible. The Wachowskis shot Joel Silver's script for this along with the script for The Matrix, and got mega bucks for each. This one was then rewritten for them by Helgeland at the request of Donner, who wanted to lighten it up and tone it down (script-doctoring was his Hollywood specialty). He succeeded so well that the Wachowskis did their best to have their names cut from the credits, but to no avail. From what I've figured out, the rewrite dumped the love sequence between Moore and Stallone (thank fucking God) and yet the final moronic twist was added (why the fuck?!). It's actually interesting to find the various details here already pointing to the fact that the dough has already been kneaded for one of the most important cinematic events ever. One of the heroes is a hacker nicknamed Electra, and the final contrivance with the sunglasses probably didn't fit the adventures of the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar either. There seems to have been some effort at this point to assign Banderas his typical shooting stance from Desperado where, usually ambidextrous, he fires his pistols in a manner that looks more like he's trying to throw the whole gun. This style of his, however, doesn't really fit into the cleaned-up, glassy 90s interiors, and it looks awfully clunky there. One of Donner's specialties emerges in this late-era Donner, and that's his ability to scoop the worst possible acting handfuls (kids, animals, Sylvester Stallone, Bill Murray, Marlon Brando) onto his shoulders and survive. (06.02.2021)