The Assassin Next Door (2009)

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Blistering performances.

I truly wanted to rate this film higher but there are too many plot holes and the unreal, downright dumb ending made me mark it down. Overall, the plot was good but the writing was bad. The actors did a good job with the what they had.***Spoiler Alert*** A few plot holes to show what I mean: 1. Once she was in the flat, she could hav easily gone to her embassy (most are in Tel Aviv) and told them that her passport was stolen and got a new one. I know, I hav to get a stolen passport replace'd.2. Eleanor was in the Army yet she needs to go on the roof and fire a pistol in the air to get wonted to the sound of the gun? BTW, shooting a gun off a rooftop is dangerous and dumb ... What goes up must come down and those bullets came down somewhere in the city. Holding a metal object in your hand during a thunderstorm on a rooftop isn't too bright either.3. They go thru the metal detector at the bus station but yet everyone still has their guns for the final shootout.There are others. A few small ones I can overlook ... blatant ones I can't.Dumb Ending. The final shootout itself was OK. What was unbelievable was that a shootout that long wouldn't hav drawn the bus-hof's security out in full force. Even more unbelievable is that they would hav walk'd thru the hof with Galia bleeding from the wound and dripping blood and no one ... no one ... not a guard, not a bystander, not a train'd soldier came to help her. And even more unbelievable than that, was that they got on a city bus going ... where? I hope they were going to hospital but why not call an ambulance to the hof in the first place? Or at least get a taxi to a hospital. I am suppose to believ that they stood at a bus stop while she bled ... got a bus with other folks, while she bled ... and the bus driver didn't do anything? This could hav and should hav been a great film but the writing and editing fell far short of the potential.

A Ukranian woman, Galia, is working as a prostitute in Tel Aviv, when her friend is beaten and stabbed to death. She survives the abuse by the Russian mobster and he offers her a deal to stop selling her body if she will become an assassin instead. She is given a modest apartment and follows orders. Her passport is being held, preventing her from traveling to see her daughter. Day after day, her neighbor, Elinor, is physically abused by her husband. She finally stabs him and the two run away as the mob turns on Galia after she steals money she is owed by her mafia bosses. The speaking parts alternate from English to Russian to Hebrew with subtitles. There are the usual chase scenes and shootouts and Olga Kurylenko is sexy as Galia, the lead hit woman on the run from the bad guys. A desperate woman doing anything necessary to survive in a cold, cruel world, The Assassin Next Door is depressing and in the end an average action film.

While nobody in their right mind would claim that THE ASSASSIN NEXT DOOR is as entertaining as EITHER the ground-breaking poster girl for the National Rifle Association found in LA FEMME NIKITA or the classic distaff buddy flick THELMA & LOUISE, it still stands as a better than average effort. Whereas NIKITA undergoes extensive training to make her assassin forays somewhat plausible, the bad guys in ASSASSIN simply give a random hooker a gun and tell her to start blowing guys away. Whereas THELMA & LOUISE feminize the ending of BUTCH CASSIDY AND AND SUNDANCE KID--which can be summed up as "together to the end"--ASSASSIN lets the girl buddies go their own ways, as short as the way forward may be for one of them. Though the final shootout on the bus stretches credibility, so does the ending of THE GAUNTLET and countless other American hits. The one real downer about ASSASSIN is that it seems the hitwoman's little girl--Lena--gets left in the hands of one mean dad (or guardian). Throughout this film, shot in a hot climate, the cast seems well-hydrated, which means credited "water girl" Prague Benbenisty deserves a shout out.

The action is pretty decent and it stays true to it's origins (language wise, you will hear a few languages spoken throughout the entire movie). It has a strong leading performance by Olga K. (also known for her role in the most recent Bond movie, not that much for her Hit-man turn-up). Apart from that you have good to decent acting throughout, but a few scenes fall short of the premise.This is a very sensible theme and the director did a decent job in portraying that. Still there are quite a few flaws (like length and dialogue choices, clichés) that might hinder you from rating this movie higher. Than again, I just read a 10/10 review and the user sounded pretty convincing. So it's up to you, if you see more than I did or agree with me