Assassination Tango (2003)

Starring: Robert Duvall, Luciana Pedraza, Ruben Blades
Director: Robert Duvall

Rating: R

Studio: United Artists

Review Posted: 4.04.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara M. Fetters.

"Duvall Misfires with Unfocused Tango"

Robert Duvall is an exceptional actor. After turning in iconic performances in films as diverse as The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, The Great Santini, Colors, Tender Mercies and television’s Lonesome Dove there can be no argument about that. Yet, every once and a while, the Academy Award winning actor branches out. In fact, his prior two stints as a writer and director, Angelo, My Love and The Apostle, are in many ways cinematic perfection.

Now with Assassination Tango, the gifted Duvall has moved into the writer/director chair once more. But while the film features some vibrantly alive performances and many sublime moments of sheer beauty, I’m sad to say the third time is not a charm for the talented artist. In all honesty, Assassination Tango is a disappointing and unfocused misfire, and Duvall the writer has only himself to blame.

Duvall plays John J, an enigmatic and aging New York hitman pondering a new assignment in Argentina. His boss and friend Frankie (Frankie Gio) assures him that the hit will be a cakewalk and the payday huge. More importantly, the turnaround in Argentina will be a quick one, assuring John is back in New York by the weekend to attend his girlfriend Maggie’s (Kathy Baker) daughter’s birthday.

But things don’t turn out quite as planned once John reaches Central American nation. The general he is sent to kill is detained out of the country, and the hitman’s brief three-day stay in Argentina quickly turns into a multi-week delay. Now, not only is John going to miss his beloved little girl’s birthday, he also might have to rethink his entire plan to assassinate the intended target as his plans start to appear compromised.

While wandering the countryside, John gets a chance to indulge in his one true passion: dancing. As if drawn by fate, he’s led into a small hole-in-the-wall like club and sees his favorite dance – the tango – being performed as if for the first time. A combination of fire and ice, precision and passion, John finds himself becoming consumed by the dance and slowly obsessed with a particular dancer, the seductively beautiful Manuela (newcomer Luciana Pedraza).

Soon he is slowly insinuating himself into her life, making friends with her mother and sister and learning all he can about the burningly hot blooded tango. Unfortunately, John is in the country to kill a man, not learn the nuances of a particular dance. Torn between the two worlds and under the growing realization that those he’s been trusting to feed him information about his target are not what they seem, John realizes how much life with Maggie and her daughter means to him and how much he is longing to return to that simple, idyllic existence.

Unfortunately, Assassination Tango is as torn between two worlds as its protagonist. On one hand a gorgeously sumptuous introduction to the fiery tango while on the other a dank look at the lonely life of an aged killer, Duvall tries to facilitate a tart connection between the lustful passion of one and the desolate loneliness of the other. While it is all potentially interesting, neither world is never fully realized and Duvall can’t seem to get a handle on bringing them together.

It doesn’t help that John is a thoroughly unlikable character. Even as he charmingly ingratiates himself into Manuela’s life and she in turn becomes fascinated and a enamored by his obsession with the Tango, it’s still much too hard to feel anything like sympathy or compassion towards this precise killer. In fact, once John is trapped in Argentina, I found myself quietly hoping Assassination Tango would end tragically, bringing some sort of welcome pathos to the film. In all actuality, this is not a movie or a character that deserves a happy ending, and I’m positive I’d feel much different towards it had Assassination Tango come to such a denouement.

Still, Duvall has cast his film magnificently. His few brief scenes with Baker are quietly affecting, while he and Gio have a snappy give and take that’s fun to watch. Rubén Blades and Julio Oscar Mechoso turn up briefly as John’s Argentinean contacts, and while they don’t have much in the way to do, they more than make up for their limited screen time with coolly efficient performances.

The real revelation, however, is the lustily talented Pedraza. She and Duvall have amazingly effervescent chemistry that almost seers the screen despite their hearty age difference. Whether dancing or bantering wittily with Duvall, Pedraza is so much fun to watch I just couldn’t take my eyes off of her. This is the type of stand-up-and-take-notice performance that burgeoning actors dream off, yet Pedraza is so effortless in her portrayal that I started to think she almost didn’t have to try to be so wondrously beguiling.

There is a quiet moment between Manuela and her two-year old daughter near the end of the film when I finally knew this woman needs to be a star. The genuine feeling and emotion between mother and daughter is so real, so graceful, that the bittersweet nature of why they are waiting on a desolate park bench becomes all the more heartrending. Pedraza is pitch perfect in the scene, raising Assassination Tango to a level Duvall heretofore hasn’t been able to achieve.

If only Duvall the director could bring the two films vying for attention together. They float along beside each other, never really connecting, their themes only intersecting from time to time and not necessarily in ways the actor/writer/director intended. In fact, as captivating as the tango and dance portions of the film are, the plot points dealing with the impending assassination are worth noting just for their exact opposite impact. I’ve seen this part of the film before, and Duvall the writer doesn’t have a clue as to how to make them new or interesting.

As good as everyone is, I could have cared less about where it was all heading. Despite the talents involved and Duvall’s proven strengths as writer and director, the only thing Assassination Tango really accomplished was to dance off with some of my spare time.

Rating: 2.5 out of 4

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