Customer Reviews

Assassination Tango

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Where is Tango in this movie? Ah, yes, it's at the end, when the final credits appear. Everything else is just a bunch of extremely short clips, as if it were a TV commercial. Acting by all the characters is horrible. The plot is not too bad, but the script and editing are not good at all.

Obviously an endorsement for his girlfriend's passion...the tango. The dance scenes are the only thing worth watching. Unfortunately, Robert Duvall lacks the testosterone level to successfully portray an assassin, let alone dance the tango...Go Papito!

I was intrigued from beginning to end. It's laced with violence, moreso the precarious nature of being human, touching on nuances of community, human sexuality, relationships, psychology, and the meaning of dance. The Argentine tango is a fascinating culture in and of itself. Not for everyone, perhaps, but what is? Another fine film.

The movie wasn't about Tango so much, it wasn't about the mob so much. It just didn't really go anywhere. It could of been a contender, but sadly it wasn't.

Robert Duvall is one of the greatest actors of our time. But this film smacks of a vanity piece. Plot slooooooow! Editing: please, let's have some. Lots of talking heads. Watch Tender Mercies, Lonesome Dove, or Second Hand Lions, or anything else. He was too close to this one. Like a doctor operating on his own family. He needed distance. His protagonist just did not have qualities to engender empathy for. Duvall shines in any movie as a "god" of actor! Many can't even do that. But he needs to divide responsiblities for a director and editor. Shots, though, had excellent color in the non-static scenes.

A low-level Mafia hitman is sent to Argentina to kill a retired general for his 'crimes against humanity'. The general has an accident (breaks his leg) and so the assasination is postponed and the hitman, who likes ballroom dancing, takes tango lessons.

The film is basically an excuse to show off the tango sequences and dancing of Duvall's current girlfriend (in real life). She basically steals the movie. Duvall is a great actor but this isn't the best vehicle for him though it could have been much better with a better script and a more compelling story.

As it is the story is weak and flawed. Still, Duvall in a mediocre film is better than most other actors around and his girlfriend is spectacular. Worth viewing once, especially for Duvall fans or fans of tango.

Robert Duvall shows some originality, in this captivating film. I say captivating, I couldnt turn it off, the dialouge was very realistic almost with a documentary edge, the action while not flashy or excessive had realistic grit,and I had to know how it was going to end. Being an artistic endevour you really dont know whats going to happen to our protaganist, hitman in the end.
I throw the word original at this work for a couple of reasons. The main character, "John Anderson" played by Duvall(albeit as the same cheracter we have seen him play before) is a hitman with a difference, not to much macho posturing is used creating this vulnerable,aging,and somewhat regretful professional. He's not regretful about the "jobs" he performed, but that as he nears the twilight of his life he has established no real roots. He does however now have girlfriend with a ten year old daughter, and his love for and devotion to this child shines through, as does Duvall's love for the Tango which is so beautifully performed many times for the loving camera by very attractive Argentinians. Both young and old.
The assasination plot takes a back seat to the Tango for a good portion of the film, and when Duvall brings us back to his whole purpose of being in Argentina we are as sorry as he to have to leave this wonderful dance behind.
There are one or two moments where Duvall's scenes could have been tightened up but I never felt these were very big negatives. All in all I would recommend this film to lovers of independent film, dance, and Robert Duvall fans.

If there was a 0 star I would have given it that. The movie is incoherent; the acting is mediocre at best. The movie fails to grab your attention and you are left wondering when is it going to happen, until you realize that it isn't!

Assassination Tango is about reclaiming one's soul through the innocence and wonder of a child. It is about the preoccupation with our self-image and the ability of some of us to be both ruthless and loving, amoral yet touched by innocence and art. Duvall, who wrote, starred in and directed this movie, wants to convey the transcendental power of the tango. Unfortunately, the film fails to get under the skin of its characters or its sketchy social commentary. It resonates more like a feeble soft-shoe number than an intense dance with life and death.

While the examination of the world of the Tango in Argentina is interesting, especially if you love dancing, the vehicle used is a banal "a hitman goes native for a while, but gets to go home again" theme. The script is flawed and the movie ends with lots unresolved.

The photography in both Brooklyn and Argentina contains many scenes of breathtaking beauty. Duvall's scenes with Luciana Pedraza ( Manuela) are magical ,as are the sequences involving her teaching Mr. Duvall to tango. Geraldine Rojas as Pirucha delivers a beautiful speech on the relationship of tango to life. There's a slight romance, but even though Duvall and Pedraza are real-life lovers, their onscreen chemistry is negligible, and too much of the film's thematic exploration of tango is delivered in clumsy and didactic dialogue sequences instead of blistering action on the dance floor.

In the last act, it heats up as a thriller, with the usual double-crosses and hairbreadth escapes, but it's such a poor job of storytelling that through the entire finale it's impossible to figure out what is happening, who the various gangland players are, who is killing whom, and why.

Recommended rental, maybe, but not something I'd really watch more than once.

Robert Duvall could very well be the same character he played in The Apostle as he represents in Assassination Tango. He has the same impatient fervor, passionate obsessions, and bowlegged swashbuckling strut. Rather than get into a new character method, Duvall plays himself again with a new hobby - tango. And how to make a movie about tango interesting? Complement it with an "International Man of Murder Mystery". Duvall is a fine actor, and I do appreciate him. However, this movie bored me to tears. The tango dancing is exquisite. The indigineous Argentinians are charismatic, beautiful dancers and a joy to watch. By the end of the film it feels like a geriatric tour-de-force -- trying to hold onto youth by obsessing over a hot young tango dancer... and a 10 year-old daughter back home. I develop an interest in taking tango lessons and a nostalgia for Duvall's excellent opus, The Apostle....