Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Assassins (1995)
Director: Richard Donner
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
An unusually serious, almost sombre thriller from the versatile action producer Joel Silver in which Stallone's a jaded assassin haunted by the past but unable to face the future. As Robert Rath, he gives his best performance for some time, abandoning the self-mockery of Demolition Man and the risible muscle-flexing of The Specialist in favour of a more contained stillness. If only director Donner had inspired Banderas with the same confidence in this essentially generic, but involving scenario; as Miguel Bain, however, an upstart obsessed with inheriting Rath's position as the world's number-one assassin, he's horribly embarrassing, acting throughout like a St Vitus Dance sufferer on amphetamines. Plotwise, things are straightforward. Julianne Moore has unwittingly acquired a computer disk containing dangerously incriminating information, Stallone's hired to kill her, but is having a mid-life career crisis, the bad guys and Interpol are slaughtering everything that moves, and Banderas is the joker in the pack. Between the hits, car chases and gunfire, there are numerous quiet scenes in darkened rooms in which Sly and Moore discover an affinity in their loneliness.Author: NF
Cast & crew
Director: Richard Donner
Producer: Richard Donner, Joel Silver, Bruce Evans, Raynold Gideon, Andrew Lazar, Jim Van Wyck
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, Julianne Moore, Anatoly Davydov, Muse Watson, Stephen Kahan, Kelly Rowan full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 133 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Martin Provost discusses 'Séraphine'
Trevor Johnston talks to the director of 'Séraphine' about bringing a little known French painter back to life
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Stephen Poliakoff discusses 'Glorious 39'
Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘Glorious 39’ is his first film for cinema since ‘Food of Love’ in 1997. Dave Calhoun met him
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
Steven Soderbergh on 'The Informant!' and 'The Girlfriend Experience'
We talk to Steven Soderbergh about his two forthcoming films: one featuring a porn star, the other a chubby Matt Damon
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations












What do you think?
Post your review now