Assassin's Bullet (2012)

Truly Dreadful Film

Let's be realistic.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

My girlfriend is Bulgarian so I've traveled to the city of Sofia many times and often watch films that are shot in her home country because the nature there is very pretty and it's fun for me to recognize some of the sights that we've been to together. Even though I had read reviews of this movie which warned the reader to steer away from it, for the most part, I already have quite low expectations when I watch films that are shot in Bulgaria, because they usually have a very low budget and star B list actors. So because of that and the aforementioned emotional connection I'm always very forgiving of them and since I thought it might be nice to see a film which was shot in Sofia that's also actually set there, I figured it can't be as bad as all that and decided to watch it all the same. Boy, was I wrong. This movie was just awful. Bulgaria is absolutely nothing like it's being presented in this film. It seems to me the director mixed up Sofia with Istanbul or some other Arabic city. I've been there a lot and I have never come across people selling Arabic clothes on the streets or seen any local bars with belly dancers. In fact, of all the major European cities I've visited, Sofia probably has the smallest Muslim population of all, but they make it appear like the larger part of its inhabitants are Muslims and because of that, terrorists apparently use it as a base from which to attack the rest of the continent. The score also mostly consisted of Arabic music, which only served to further misinform the viewer about what the city is really like. I must confess that I was so annoyed by all of these misrepresentations that I couldn't pay attention to the story at all. Maybe if you've never been to or know anything about Bulgaria, or Eastern Europe in general, you can still enjoy watching Christian Slater and Donald Sutherland in this, but please keep in mind that Sofia in real life is nothing like they make it out to be in this movie. I read one review of someone saying that he had no idea Bulgaria was so culturally diverse, but that he should have guessed considering its proximity to Turkey, so this film has already completely misinformed him and I just wanted make a little contribution to try and prevent it from doing any more damage. If you'd like to watch a movie which is both shot and set in Bulgaria and that represents the city more accurately, I can recommend "Doubly Identity" with Val Kilmer. That definitely also has its flaws (it represents the country as being under military rule but is set shortly after the fall of Communism to make that more believable), but it's still much more truthful than "Sofia" AKA "Assassin's Bullet", which, of course, isn't very hard considering that they got pretty much everything wrong in that. The films which are shot there but supposedly take place in America are actually way more truthful to what the country is really like, since Bulgaria in real life is just as western as any other member of the European Union.

This is a 3 out of 10 film if there ever was one. The production is mediocre, sound is clear and audible, lighting is professional, not TV quality nor cinema quality, but TV film quality, the acting is what it is and the story is garbage.There is no point in this film.Things just happen. There are so many sides to the story but we never know what their motivations are. People just do things because. Lots of weird things. Bulgarian Turks understand Arabic for some reason (so they speak Bulgarian, Turkish and Arabic, from Indo-European, Turkic and Semitic, three completely different language trees. They're that good, but they choose to spend their intelligence smoking hookah, watching bellydancers and drinking tea.) Oh, and not one of them says "I didn't get it. Could someone translate?" Then Robert (main character) speaks Bulgarian also, he just chooses not to speak it. They ask him in Bulgarian, he answers back in English. I guess the Bulgarians speak English too, but they also choose not to speak it.I don't know how Robert learned Bulgarian so fast (a matter of days?), but I'm Russian and even I needed subtitles because I understood nothing.He understood everything, but he did not dare say one word in Bulgarian. It's not just these inconsistencies, but this is just proof of poor writing and poor understanding of geopolitics.There are random scenes of bellydancing to really stretch out the runtime. Is there a point to this?Islam is the flavor of the decade, so Bulgaria decided to jump on board.The sad thing is that Bulgaria has a lot more interesting stories to tell. The attempted assassination of the Pope is still not understood, a conspiracy that theorists link to the USSR, the KGB, Bulgarian secret service, The Turkish Grey Wolves, East German police, an inside job (Vatican) and so many more. Create a new story like this with new actors, the FSB, Putin, CIA, multinational corporations, etc. instead of the boring topic of Islamic terror which has flooded cinema, TV and now TV movies.Finally, if anyone is interested in some serious Bulgarian TV, watch Pod Prikritie (Undercover). Sofia or whatever they call this film is just crap.

I'm not sure what this movie was supposed to be but it came off as the wet dream of a belly dancer enthusiast with some unrealistic and confusing story thrown in. I don't know how to write 7 more lines when all that really needs to be said is that this movie sucks! I don't know how you could write a spoiler to this movie as the plot is so full of holes or any shred of believability that it is spoil proof. Actually, saying that the movie sucks is a bit of a spoiler because that is the core of the whole thing... suck-dom. It's a complete mess and awkward. Even the ending sucks big time. It was such a simplistic story that they could have wrapped it up easy but they did not. There are characters introduced and developed (Well, kinda but not really of course) and then they disappear...This movie sucks!

Bulgaria: Christian and Muslim, modern but also with horse-drawn carts, belly dancing and computers.Slater's character Robert works at the US embassy in Sofia on educational programs. He's a big tipper, and gives money and food to the unfortunate. He drinks a lot. His friend Kahn recommends therapy, but Robert would rather just avoid.He's former FBI; his wife was eastern European, but she was killed in New York. So he's staying away from New York, and being altruistic.Threads: Ashdown wants Robert to come out of retirement and hunt down some local thug. Kahn wants Robert to get on with his life. Elika wants to kill all the people who wronged her as a child. Robert works with Elika on a literacy project. Dr. Kahn treats Elika for her blackouts or syncope (wikipedia...'a transient loss of consciousness and postural tone, characterized by rapid onset, short duration, and spontaneous recovery...'). Robert starts working with Bulgarian police in Sofia, as arranged through Ashdown. Robert and one of the belly dancers become friendly.Robert and the police start with the killing of a Muslim Jihadist. Robert shows some police work. The film shows some crooked cops.Dr. Kahn gets Elika to let certain memories surface, such as her time in an insane asylum, and her recruitment and training into a group of assassins. She later visits the doctor dressed as her assassin persona. We get to see the sepia footage (again, again, again...I lost count) of her parents just before they were murdered.Kahn advises Robert to be careful, in case the belly dancer is just in love with his passport. The belly dancer dramatically drives a dagger into the seat cushion next to Robert's head, then runs off into the night. Robert follows, then catches up with her. She asks for a meeting later.Robert starts to put the pieces together. Does he ever make a difference? Sadly, no.----Scores-----Cinematography: 6/10 Tends to be dark and blurred out.Sound: 8/10 No particular problems; just a bit boring.Acting: 4/10 Veterans Slater, Sutherland, and Spall were OK, given the weak screenplay. Portnoy was amateurish. Many of the supporting players were just terrible.Screenplay: 0/10 Fails as a thriller, since suspense was not sustained. Fails as a mystery, since the main character's problems were telegraphed from the beginning. Fails as an action-adventure film, since most of the combat is sniper action, or just unbelievable. As a psychological drama, it is poorly done. The endless repeats of the childhood trauma were not good exposition; they were just irritating. The interactions of Dr. Kahn might have been much better if the actor playing the psycho were better.