The Assignment opens to the sounds of a couple having sex. Afterwards, Carlos the Jackal (Aidan Quinn) kills a spider in its web with his cigarette and evicts the woman (Lucie Laurier) from his room because he claims he has work to do. He is seen donning a disguise, and he walks to a cafe where CIA officer Jack Shaw (Donald Sutherland) is sitting at a table outdoors. He recognizes Shaw and asks for a light. Shaw does not recognize Carlos, because of his disguise, but he turns to watch Carlos enter the cafe. He watches as Carlos detonates a grenade, killing dozens of people.
The film shows an event of attacking the OPEC meeting by the Jackal and his followers in 1975. In 1986 a man, looking like Carlos, is apprehended in an open-air market and brutally interrogated by a Mossad commander named Amos (Ben Kingsley). 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 Shaw who tries to recruit him to impersonate the terrorist leader. Ramirez, however, is deeply embittered by his rough treatment at Amos’ hands, and threatens to sue.
Shaw persists, confronting Ramirez with the human cost of Carlos’ terrorism. He finally convinces Ramirez by showing him a photograph of child who is a victim of one of Carlos’ bombings. Amos and Shaw train Ramirez at a former prison in Canada. Much of his training is devoted to situational awareness and internalizing details of Carlos’ life. His training concludes with one of Carlos’ ex-mistresses (Céline Bonnier) training Ramirez in how to make love like Carlos.
The plan revolves around convincing the KGB, which is financing his terrorism, that Carlos has begun selling information to the CIA’s Counter-terrorism Division. Shaw lures one of Carlos’ girlfriends to Libya, where Ramirez meets up with her, successfully posing as Carlos, even during their lovemaking. The girlfriend has become an informant for French intelligence, however. Several French agents arrive at their apartment, and Ramirez is forced to kill them in self-defense. He is horrified at having to kill allies in his undercover operation.
The Assignment is a 1997 spy thriller film directed by Christian Duguay and starring Aidan Quinn in two roles, 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 Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal.
The Assignment (1997)
Directed by: Christian Duguay
Starring: Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, Ben Kingsley, Claudia Ferri, Céline Bonnier, Vlasta Vrana, Liliana Komorowska, Al Waxman, Gabriel Marian Oseciuc, Frédéric Desager
Screenplay by: Dan Gordon, Sabi H. Shabtai
Production Design by: Michael Joy
Cinematography by: Christian Duguay, David Franco
Film Editing by: Yves Langlois
Costume Design by: Ada Levin
Art Direction by: James Fox
Music by: Normand Corbeil
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, sexuality and language.
Distributed by: Triumph Films
Release Date: September 26, 1997
Hits: 153
