Assassination Tango
Starring: Robert Duvall, Luciana Pedraza
Written and Directed by: Robert Duvall

Rating: 0 out of 5

Well kids, this is a first for me. In the 6 or so months I've been writing this column, it has NEVER taken me this long to get through a movie. Allow me to explain.

I first got this in early December (which, as I'm sure some of you will point out, makes it my LATEST review as well.) and, well, I didn't watch it right away, I admit. I was busy, what with the impending holidays and all.

Then, finally, I had a bit of a break from Day Job, and figured it was about time to give it a shot. After all, how bad can a movie about a hit man that loves to dance be, right?

I read the blurb on the DVD cover to Mrs. Naked, who promptly told me, "You're NOT forcing me to watch that." Maybe she knew something I didn't.

So I popped it in, watched about 25 minutes of it, and then, bored to actual, physical tears, I turned it off. And left for Newfoundland for 8 days. That's right, I WENT TO NEWFOUNDLAND to escape this movie.

But it was waiting for me when I got back. It sat on my DVD rack, haunting me, taunting me, torturing me with its very presence. It seemed to call to me..."Naked...Naked...come on, watch me! You know you want to!" Interestingly enough, it was parked next to "Wrong Turn", which in turn was screaming at me, "Don't do it Naked! It's a trap! A TRAP I tells ya!"

But finally, last night, I caved. And, since it had been a while, I had to start at the beginning again, having long ago burned my previous notes to ash in an attempt to exorcise this movie from my life. But, being the plucky journalist I am, I carried on.

This time, I lasted until the one-hour mark before turning it off. I was having trouble breathing, and my limbs were leaden. The 40-ounce bottle of Canadian Club I'd purchased was empty, yet I did not feel drunk...merely tired and without the will to live any longer. My hand slowly crept toward the phone in an attempt to call the paramedics...I needed them to slap those paddles on my chest, scream "CLEAR!" and attempt to jolt me back to life once again.

But, when my fingers reached the phone, it beeped its "Low Battery" beep, despite having been charged all day and off the charger, unused, for just over an hour. 'FUCKING CHEAP PHONE!" I screamed, re-energized, as I threw it against the wall. Eerily, it did not break...perhaps this satanic "communications" device is in league with "Assassination Tango"...I don't know.

Well folks, seeing as I had my energy back, I toyed with watching the final hour, but couldn't bring myself to do it. Instead, I flipped channels until I found a movie called "Expect To Die". This made-in-Canada-zero-budget piece of embarrassing crap was worse than a Mystery Science Theater 3000 special. At a 1.6 IMDB ranking, it would be in the bottom 10 of all time, if it had enough votes to count. And yet, I WATCHED the last 45 minutes of that PATHETIC, Jalal Merhi "classic" rather than watch the end of "Assassination Tango."

Finally, after an especially trying day at Day Job today, I sat down, no longer afraid of what it would do to me, and watched the end.

I now feel like Jeff Bridges in "Fearless"...like I can survive anything...simply because I survived the crushing, soul-destroying boredom of "Assassination Tango."

IT'S A MOVIE ABOUT A HIT MAN THAT LOVES TO DANCE!!!!!!! How could Robert Duvall DO this to me! He wrote and directed "THE APOSTLE", for the love of Mike!

Let me try and explain this to you. When the movie opens, we meet Johnny J. (Duvall). He's in a divey-looking club called "Frankie's". Everyone is in the middle of a dance lesson. Sitting next to him is his step-daughter Jenny (Katherine Micheaux Miller), whom he is badgering to dance with him. Apparently, you see, Johnny LOVES to dance.

So later on he goes out and shoots someone in line at another club. Because he's a hit man, you see. One who LOVES to dance. He then goes back to Frankie's for a nightcap, and perhaps to cut a little rug. Because he LOVES TO DANCE.

Oh yeah, and Frankie himself is actually a powerful mob boss. One who ALSO, as it turns out, LOVES TO DANCE. Frankie tells Johnny about another upcoming "job" he has for him in Buenos Aires...Frankie doesn't want to take it at first, because it's Jenny's birthday coming up, but Frankie assures him that he'll be back in 3 days, tops.

The next day, Johnny follows Jenny to school. I suppose this is meant to show that he really cares about her, except Duvall the director didn't count on the fact that a 72-year-old lurking around a schoolyard is REALLY FUCKING CREEPY.

And if that wasn't creepy enough, he gets into an argument with a cop at a nearby newsstand soon afterwards. It's not so much of a fight as it is Johnny picking a fight with the poor shmuck simply because he mentions that Johnny looks tired. Johnny then goes off like a nuclear bomb, swearing and generally acting like an unstable lunatic. The scene, by the way, is pointless...unless we're supposed to think that Johnny is a mentally deficient maniac who seems to love the word "behoove".

This brief synopsis, I might add, is the FIRST HALF HOUR of the movie. So, at this point, we know that our "hero":

1) LOVES TO DANCE
2) Loves, also, to murder people in cold blood
3) Likes to lurk around schoolyards
4) Likes to threaten people for no good reason.

That's our HERO, ladies and gentlemen. No wonder I went to Newfoundland. I should have fucking gone to TIBET.

So he gets off the plane in Argentina and is met by his contact Miguel (Ruben Blades). After a pointless, boring in-car conversation, he meets with Miguel's family. They inform him that the man he is supposed to kill is some kind of corrupt General. They don't specifically STATE what he's guilty of, but they sure don't care much for the guy, so he's obviously got it coming to him. Because when Ruben Blades says that you're a bad man, he means it. Oh, and then an older woman, who had just cooked a meal for them, shows Johnny an old picture of a small boy who the General is somehow responsible for killing. Miguel pulls Johnny aside and says, "She doesn't know who you are or why you're here...but she knows."

Ah...that's dialogue for you. It doesn't always have to make sense.

Back at the hotel, Johnny shows us all that he's cautious by opening the hotel room door, standing there for a second, dropping his bag, and jumping out of the doorframe. The whole thing takes at least 5 seconds, proving to all of us that Johnny has the reflexes of a cat. A drunk, 25 year old, blind cat - but a cat nonetheless.

After meeting with some guy in a gym to arrange for a weapon to "do the deed", he ambles downstairs and passes...a DANCE studio. Inside, they're dancing the Tango, which enraptures Johnny because, as you know, he LOVES TO DANCE.

But wait! All is not well in Argentina! It seems that the "target" has suffered some sort of accident and won't be in Buenos Aires for at least 3 weeks. Inexplicably, Johnny can't return home and just COME BACK LATER, so he's stuck there, missing Jenny's birthday. And we know he's angry, because he beats up a payphone and screams "FIND YOURSELF A NEW KILLING MACHINE!" to nobody in particular. I swear to you, I'm making NONE of this up.

But then...HE SEES THE DANCE AGAIN! More specifically, he sees Manuela (Luciana Pedraza) dancing with some dude on stage! Oh! Be still! Now he has something to DO in town while he waits around to murder a total stranger in cold blood!

This, by the way, is the first "dance-only" scene. What I mean by this is that there is no less than about 15 minutes of scenes of people dancing the tango in this movie. And about 10 of those minutes are Johnny fantasizing that he's dancing with Manuela.

He finally tracks Manuela down to a club, where he tells her what a wonderful dancer she is. He asks her to dance, she shoots him down, and then offers to give him lessons. We're not sure if she likes him, or she's playing hard to get, or if she just doesn't care. That's because Pedraza has all the acting ability of a week-old slice of pizza. She has, literally, no range. It's astonishing.

But, as they see more of each other, they warm to each other, and they dance...a LOT. Both in "real life" and in Johnny's fantasies. At times, it's hard to tell which is which, and it really doesn't matter.

Oh, and Miguel might not be everything he seems to be, and could be trying to set Johnny up somehow. Whatever. BACK TO DANCING!

Let's play a little game I just invented called "Spin versus Reality."

SPIN: According to the DVD case, "John finds himself prowling the city's intoxicating tango clubs - only to be seduced by a sultry dancer, tempted by the tango...and betrayed by a lethal conspiracy."
REALITY: Duvall proves that he once spent 50 bucks at an Arthur Murray Dance Studio, clumsily dances a lot, and virtually forgets all about the only interesting storyline in the movie.

An aside: Okay, I realize they're trying to make gold out of lead here, but ANYONE who is ever even TEMPTED to write the words "tempted by the tango" - for ANY reason - should have their hands cut off.

Extras-wise, there's an alternate ending, which is another 5 minutes of DANCING. There are also some deleted scenes, but they're no better or worse that the rest of it. Oh, and it's dubbed in 3 languages and subtitled in 4, so that the entire WORLD can be bored by it.

I initially thought that this might be some kind of "art" film. But, I guess "art" is in the eye of the beholder. After all, some painters smear bodily fluids on canvas and call it "art".

That's a lot like this movie..."art" to its creator, and just urine on cloth to others.