Assassin(s)

First of all, this is not a good or a bad movie. It is a little boring, and a couple of things did not quite match.

However, it has a very serious violence (no action, pure raw and disgusting violence) with enough good taste to avoid blood all over the lenses (but not less shocking), and compared to the Oliver Stone movie, it is a lot better and really delivers the message.

All three main characters are marginal people. One of them a dying drug addict killer, the other two are nobodies trying to find a way in life. I do not think that every lost person in the world could become a killer or a psychopath; but there are not bad candidates either. The concept of TV generating violence, is not new and hardly arguably, but the way it is presented, without any poetry or sympathy makes the point better than any other movie on the subject.

Conclusion; this is not a commercial movie. It is the type of film you see when you are looking for something deep that makes your brain work. Overall, you will probably dislike it, which is a good reason to give it a try.

Kassovitz is not the first director that made the mistake to let a message overflow his picture. In Assassin(s) he does it thoroughly and quite conscientiously. At least no one can question the artistical outcome. The point of view is accurate, everything is well-thought: the story-line very well paced and packed with dark suspense.

That is the main point. The movie is by far too gloomy. Cinema cannot be an Art for the Art's sake, it definitely has to do with entertainment. People go to the movies hoping to get out relieved from such concerns as screen violence & social issues. These people are not only fat-brained teens starving for action blockbusters, it would be wrong to think entertainment is for low-educated masses. People want laughs (mostly), thrills (escape from the dull), scares (not too scary though)... but they do not want a distressing movie.

Hence Assassin(s) does not cater for a large audience. I found it great despite its darkness because I am sensitive to its top class directorial and writing skills. Yet the poor marketing skills make it a somewhat suicidal experience for a young director and fortunately Kassovitz has been granted the expensive privilege of learning directly from his mistakes. Just hoping Les Rivières Pourpres brought him back his self-confidence to avoid out-of-the-box happy endings in the future.

This movie is, at least, morally baffling. Wagner is a veteran killer, who takes his work very seriously. However, he's dying and has no one to pass on his legacy of death. He decides, therefore, that it is best to take the young Max for his apprentice.

Mathieu Kassovitz is in great shape in this film. In addition to ensuring a solid direction, he also makes one of the main characters, namely Max. Nothing to point out from negative. The actor was able to give the character a look of ingenuity and inexperience that fit well with the situation and with Wagner, a more cunning and sinister character, who was well interpreted by veteran Michell Seraut.

Forget any notion of ethics and morals. The film is very amoral and does not mind trampling our most elementary concepts of society. It tries to point out blame for the clumsiness of our society, the inherent rot of humanity, bad television entertainment and the influence of mass communication. This is something that leaves us totally out of our comfort zone, coupled with the virtual absence of female characters and ultimately a bit disconcerting.

I personally enjoyed this movie, although it is not an easy movie for everyone. There are many artistic elements here, and I particularly liked some camera angles and shooting effects. But it lacks a solid moral background that allows people to like the film more.

Having read the previous comments, I must say that for me it wasn't too gloomy, too violent, too confused. I think you couldn't have been more lucid, even visionary, in 1997, considering the real-world high school rampages thereafter (1999: Columbine/USA, 2002: Ehrfurt/Germany, etc.).Another sharp insight in this film is the depiction of the different generational "characters". We have the old, heroin-addicted killer, the naive hard-working mother, the joint-smoking, lethargic twen and the cold-blooded, bored teen. Me, being a twen, found a totally new generation presented: They are not only constant TV consumers like all the other generations, nor is only one parent missing, but here we have no parents at all, and their active, martial video-gaming-experience combined with passive access to all the trivial perverseness of TV's innumerable channels, can most likely lead to a detached killer seeking real life testing of his training in the virtual world. The key scene for me is, when Max sees himself as a killer in the reflecting car-window. He then can still reflect upon the insanity of it all.

Michell Seraut is an aging assassin who trains the young, disoriented Mathieu Kassovitz (who also directed) to be his successor. And this is yet another movie that blames TV and video games for the violence in our society, and repeats the idea of killers with moral codes, who are not really butchers and...well, it's a rotten world anyway, the politicians are on the take, you know. I found it morally repugnant. But because Kassovitz is a talented director, it's often cinematically exciting. There's a startling plot development midway through, although the story generally shows little concern for logic. However, the film has to get extra points for its grim ending, which, considering more recent tragic events, proved to be almost prophetic. (**)