ASSASSINATION TANGO
# stars based on 4 stars: 3 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten United Artists Directed by: Robert Duvall Written by: Robert Duvall Cast: Robert Duvall, Ruben Blades, Kathy Baker, Luciana Pedraza, Julio Oscar Mechoso, James Keane, Frank Gio, Katherine Micheaux Miller, Frank Cassavetes, Michael Corrente, Raul Outeda, Geraldine Rojas, Elvio Nessier Screened at: MGM, NYC, 2/26/03
Not all hit men look and act like Jean Reno. Like some of the worst Nazi SS men, some can kill, even torture, and then come back to their loved ones as though their assassinations are just a job. It helps if the targets of their murders are bad guys, like, say, the Argentine generals involved in the disappearance of quite a few citizens during the 1970's and who live quietly, even in luxury, spared of consequences. In "Assassination Tango," a labor of love for the 72-year-old Robert Duvall, one of this country's best actors performers in the role of a killer for hire whose love of his Brooklyn girlfriend and especially of the woman's ten-year-old daughter, Jenny, knows no bounds. He's the sort of guy who'd travel to Guatamela or Iraq to pull a job provided that he'd be back home in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach section in time for the little girl's birthday party.
MIxing assassinations with tango in almost equal measure sounds about as likely as attempting a debate between President Bush and Saddam Hussein in which the two parties somehow come to a meeting of minds. But Duvall pulls it off, determined to do so, I suspect, because in this project which he directs, has written and also produced, he introduces us to his real-life girl friend, Luciana Pedraza a woman who is not afraid to admit that she is neither a professional dancer nor an actor but who is here with her feature film debut under the skilled hand of Mr. Duvall.
If you get the impression that you're at a sequel to Sally Potter's "The Tango Lesson," you'd be wrong but not off target. In Potter's picture, which involved the director's performing in the role of a middle-aged British filmmaker, promises to cast in a move a distinguished Argentinean tango dancer if he only will give her dance lessons. In Duvall's take, his character, John J., is sent by a shady Brooklyn night club owner, Frankie (Frank Gio), on a well- paying mission to Buenos Aires to do a hit on a bad guy, General Humberto Rojas (Elvio Nessier). He checks into a pension, meets his accomplices led by Miguel (Ruben Blades), and being an in-charge guy ignores much of what they say and dictates to them how he's going to do the job. Like Koji Yakusho's character in Masayuki Suo's "Shall We Dance," he passes by a dance studio and is so fascinated by the intensity of the students and instructors that he seems ready to reassess his mission and, in his case, to devote his life to the wellspring of the Argentine culture. Chatting up an instructor, Manuela (Luciana Pedraza), he appears almost ready to forget about his girl back home, Maggie (Kathy Baker), as he follows her on a tour of the tango clubs and coffee shops of South America's most European city.
It's easy to see Duvall's special interest in producing "Assassination Tango." In his real life, Duvall's girl friend is Ms. Pedraza, a woman with whom he performed the dance in the White House four years ago. She's not much in the acting department, delivering her partly improvised lines in a flat manner, but one can see how Duvall could have been so fascinated by her and by the tango to make the trip to Buenos Aires thirty times in the past fifteen years. Duvall has a low-key role, much the opposite of his performance in "The Apostle," giving the film the arthouse look designed for film goers who can appreciate a more realistic look at professional assassins than you'd get from "The Professional" or "La Femme Nikita." He astonishes as a guy who is gentle and doting on young Jenny (Katherine Micheaux Miller) but one on whose bad side you'd best avoid. In one early scene a cop who is on friendly terms tells John that he's looking tired. Interpreting this to mean that the officer thinks he has wrinkles, John gives the man hell, impressing us with his paranoia and his mistrust of everyone outside his small circle of girlfriend and her daughter. This mistrust turns out much to his advantage as the plot advances in a film that is a gem of a character study and an excellent product placement not only for Varig Airlines but for the Argentine Tourist Board.
Rated R. 114 minutes. Copyright 2003 by Harvey Karten at Harveycritic@cs.com
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