Walter Hill
The Assignment

With this film, Walter Hill, a director who certainly has nothing to prove to anyone, seriously puts himself on the line and presents a bold film that seems to have so far resulted in numerous criticisms from industry insiders, as well as even accusations from the transgender community who felt somewhat offended by the content which forms its premise.

It must be said that this film, originally titled 'Tom Boy', had been conceived since 1978 by screenwriter Danis Hamil. The basic story was initially different from the one told in the final version, but it is still something Walter Hill described as 'audacious', while also acknowledging that this film may not work but might then become a true cult object over the years. And in my opinion, he's not wrong.

In this sense, the controversy made me think of those that followed another masterpiece of American cinema, which over time became a super cult. I'm obviously talking about 'Cruising' (1980) by William Friedkin, starring a stunning Al Pacino moving through the night bars of New York in search of a serial killer of homosexuals until he completely immerses himself in this environment and even begins to question his own sexuality.

A film that was destroyed by this targeting from homosexual activists and critics alike, but which is frankly one of the best films of the genre released in those years and an absolute masterpiece by a director of films that have historically been discussed from 'The French Connection' and 'The Exorcist' and up to today with that great film which would be 'Killer Joe'.

But let's get back to the film.

Also released as a graphic novel in France, 'The Assignment' (2017) is the latest film by director Walter Hill, known primarily for being the director of cult films like 'The Warriors', '48 Hrs.', or 'Red Heat', in any case never a banal author and one who definitely knows how to direct films shot at full speed directly from the barrel of a .45 caliber.

The story is told in parallel through two different tracks and from two different characters who we discover already at the beginning are essentially the two antagonists.

On the one hand, we have Dr. Rachel Jane, we are in the present time and the doctor is clearly locked in a psychiatric hospital where she undergoes a series of interviews by the psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Galen.

Dr. Rachel Jane (played by Sigourney Weaver) is practically a plastic surgeon who, over the years, after losing her practice license, had specialized in sex change operations. Together with economic reasons, which we discover to be secondary also due to a rich inheritance received from her parents, Dr. Jane undertakes her work with a vision she calls 'artistic' and according to which through these operations she ideally imagines creating a better world.

On the other hand, we initially go back two years and follow from the beginning the vicissitudes of the true protagonist of the film, the ruthless killer named Frank Kitchen who in the initial moments kills Sebastian Jane, the brother of the Doctor, triggering in her both a thirst for revenge and the desire to experiment on Frank her skills as a surgeon and make him also a social experiment.

For this reason, she captures Frank Kitchen and subjects him to a full-scale sex change surgery: an operation that succeeds perfectly and of which Frank realizes only after it's done, when he wakes up completely bandaged and discovers by looking in the mirror in a dingy motel what has been done to him. He also finds in a box a message left by the Doctor, whose identity he does not know, in which she explains what she has done to him and why, also referring to her ideological vision, noting that by changing his sex, she has given him a new chance to start a different life from the one he was previously living.

But Frank Kitchen aka Tomboy (played by a brilliant Michelle Rodriguez who from this point of view can compete with Sarah Snook in 'Predestination' by the Spierig brothers), while managing to accept his new nature, has not changed and his main reason for living becomes finding who subjected him to that surgery and making them pay.

Spending more words on the plot at this point would be even criminal and would spoil what could be further twists in a thriller full of action where there is no time to catch your breath.

Violent, schizoid, paranoid, grotesque, 'The Assignment' is what—as predicted by the director himself—is destined to become a true cult of the genre over the years. Indeed, 'The Assignment' is already a cult. An excellent film shot by a director who has nothing to prove and nothing to lose either, and with a cast of actors, starting from Michelle Rodriguez and then Sigourney Weaver, Anthony LaPaglia, and Tony Shalhoub, who all prove to be worthy of the roles assigned to them.

Inside are the visions of writers like J.G. Ballard or K.W. Jeter. How can you not think, after all, watching this film, of such an imposing figure in the history of science fiction as Dr. Adder?

The main theme of the film is a song by keyboardist Melissa Reese, which amplifies the typical and more grotesque atmospheres of the film with industrial and post-punk shades, but the soundtrack as a whole, just to complete the presentation of the work in the best way, is curated by a giant like Ry Cooder.

'The Assignment': a film that is not a masterpiece only because otherwise, it could not then be considered primarily as a 'cult'.