''The Assignment'' is a 1997 spy action thriller film directed by Christian Duguay and starring Aidan Quinn (in two roles), with Donald Sutherland and Ben Kingsley. The film, written by Dan Gordon and Sabi H. Shabtai, is set mostly in the late 1980s and deals with a CIA plan to use Quinn's character to masquerade as the

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

n terrorist

Carlos the Jackal Ilich Ramírez Sánchez (; born 12 October 1949), also known as Carlos the Jackal () or simply Carlos, is a Venezuelan convict who conducted a series of assassinations and terrorist bombings from 1973 to 1985. A committed Marxist–Leninist, ...

Plot

In 1974,

has sex and kills a spider with his cigarette then evicts the woman from his room. He dons a disguise and walks to a cafe where CIA agent Henry Fields is sitting at a table. Recognizing Fields, Carlos asks for a light. Fields does not recognize Carlos, because of his disguise. Carlos then detonates a grenade, killing dozens of people. The next year, Carlos attacks an

OPEC The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC ) is an organization enabling the co-operation of leading oil-producing and oil-dependent countries in order to collectively influence the global oil market and maximize Profit (eco ...

meeting in

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

to earn a ransom. To identify Carlos, the CIA sends Fields, who secretly plans to assassinate him with a concealed pistol. The plan is foiled when his CIA superior stops him from reaching out to shake Carlos' hand because he might be photographed doing so by nearby journalists. In 1986, Carlos is apparently apprehended in an open-air market in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

and brutally interrogated by

Mossad The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (), popularly known as Mossad ( , ), is the national intelligence agency of the Israel, State of Israel. It is one of the main entities in the Israeli Intelligence Community, along with M ...

commander Amos. The man claims to actually be a US naval officer named Annibal Ramirez whose identification was lost in the chaos of his arrest. Amos confirms his identity and lets him go, stunned that Ramirez looks exactly like Carlos. Back at home, Ramirez is visited by Fields (now using the name Jack Shaw) who tries to recruit him to impersonate the terrorist leader. Ramirez refuses. Shaw persists, turning up at a Navy ball and trying to goad Ramirez into taking the assignment. He succeeds by confronting Ramirez with the human cost of Carlos' terrorism by taking him to Bethesda Naval Hospital to see a boy who was crippled by one of Carlos' bombs. Amos and Shaw train Ramirez at a former prison in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Much of his training is devoted to situational awareness and internalizing details of Carlos' life. His training concludes with Carla, one of Carlos' ex-mistresses, training Ramirez in how to have sex like Carlos. The plan revolves around convincing the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

, which is financing his terrorism, that Carlos has begun selling information to the CIA. Shaw lures one of Carlos' ex-lovers, Agnieska, to

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

, where Ramirez convinces her of his legitimacy. However, he notices she has become an informant for French intelligence. French agents arrive at their apartment, and Ramirez is forced to kill them. Carlos sends an assassin to kill Agnieska in France, ordering him to leave Europe through

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. The assassin happens to be in Heathrow Airport at the same time as Ramirez, and realizes Ramirez is an impostor after he fails to recognize a code phrase. During a struggle, Amos and the assassin kill each other. After Amos' death, the CIA suspends the operation and Ramirez returns home. Ramirez has sex with his wife as Carlos would, and she is disturbed by his change. The next day, at his son's little league game, he gets into a confrontation with another father and nearly kills him. Shaw bails him out of jail; both men are suffering from the failure of their mission. Ramirez accuses Shaw of fabricating the scene at the hospital to trick him into accepting the assignment and Shaw threatens to use the Ramirez family as bait to lure out Carlos if he tries to back out. That night, Ramirez reveals the mission to his wife. Ramirez and Shaw meet up in

East Berlin East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...

and the KGB photographs them, assuming Carlos has been turned. Enraged, the KGB raids Carlos' safe house, but he escapes. Shaw and Ramirez wait outside for him, and Ramirez fights Carlos on the bank of the Spree River. Eventually, one of the two men is held under water by the other. To save the latter, Shaw shoots at the former. He realizes too late that he has shot Ramirez, and Carlos swims away. Ramirez presses Shaw to leave him and kill Carlos, but Shaw insists that their plan has worked and that Carlos is now a target of the KGB. Back home, a car bomb appears to kill Ramirez and his family, and Shaw attends the funeral. In St. Martin, Ramirez receives a news clipping of the bombing with a congratulatory note from Shaw, implying that he staged the killing to liberate the Ramirez family. Ramirez nearly kills a spider in its web like Carlos, but does not. Carlos is arrested in 1994.

Cast

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

gives ''The Assignment'' a rating of 62% from 21 reviews.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily nonprofit newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has long held the second largest circulation among Chicago newspaper ...

'' gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it "fascinating because its characters can be believed, because there is at least a tiny nugget of truth in the story, and because from the deceptive opening credits, this is a film that creates the right world for these characters to inhabit."

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Assignment, The 1997 films 1990s spy thriller films 1997 action thriller films American action thriller films American spy thriller films Canadian action thriller films 1990s English-language films Films set in Montreal Cold War films Films about terrorism in Africa Films about terrorism in Europe 1990s political thriller films Triumph Films films Films directed by Christian Duguay (director) Films scored by Normand Corbeil Films set in the 1980s Films set in Libya Films set in Austria Films set in France Films set in Israel Cultural depictions of Carlos the Jackal 1990s American films 1990s Canadian films English-language action thriller films English-language spy thriller films