Assassin (1986)

Strong and Moving!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

I don't like sci-fi and i especially don't like the players in this blown up piece of garbage pretending to be a movie...every cia agent looks exactly like the typical criminals in other films and tv shows...where the heck is jack armstrong...oh, perhaps its james west, ie; robert conrad...if so he didn't pull it off...much like most of the work in his compendium...it dragged on and on and on until i finally quit watching and slept like a log

Robert Conrad doesn't break a sweat "Assassin," a second-rate, contemporary, sci-fi thriller. Neither should you. Retired secret agent Henry Stanton (Robert Conrad) comes out of retirement to save the day on one last assignment. Stanton's old boss Calvin Lantz (Robert Webber) wants Stanton to track down an invincible robot murderer. The catch is that this cyborg killer looks like a flesh and blood human. Indeed, "Assassin" is a lowest common denominator revenge movie with a robot tracking down former agency operatives and killing them with extreme impersonality. Symbolically, writer & director Sandor Stern gives the villain the surname Golem. Historically, the Golem was a Jewish monster sent to protect its people but revolts again them. "Assassin" amounts to a poor man's "Terminator" with few surprises. The cyborg has to recharge itself occasionally and it hides from our heroes while they scour an entire motel to locate it. Meanwhile, Conrad looks like he has packed on the pounds. He doesn't shed his shirt. In his glory days, Conrad always removed his shirt. He doesn't perform any strenuous stunts. He and his leading lady Karen Austin flirt with each other while Conrad's former boss, Calvin (Robert Webber), worries about his own life. Richard Young is okay as Golem. He can imitate voices. He can leap out of windows as long as they are no higher than the sixth floor. Veteran heavy Jonathan Banks plays a suspicious good guy. "Assassin' is abysmal.

Man this had so many actors that I was familiar with that I thought this would a decent movie, well not so much. It is pretty trite and the plot line is easy enough to figure out. A retired agent (Conrad) is lured out of retirement to pursue, wait for it, a robot assassin. This robot is targeting a list of assassination targets since his maker has died. Karen Austen plays Mary Casallas as the female lead and of course she ends up becoming Conrad's love interest down the line, she is an agent who worked with the robot designer when he was designing and building the robot. They finally find the journals the scientist has left behind in a hidden storage unit. Using the information obtained from the journals and Mary's insights They eventually trap the robot in a sealed room where he self destructs.

This science-fiction film stars Robert Conrad as Henry Stanton, a retired C.I.A. operative who is persuaded by his former supervisor (Robert Webber) to accept another mission, one in which it is hoped that he may be able to address a problem of a rogue agent, Robert Golem (Richard Young), who is homicidal, with his victims being Agency and high government officials. Stanton is accompanied in his efforts to locate the vicious renegade by another former Agency employee, now one of Golem's targets, Mary Cassales (Karen Austin) who reveals to her new partner that the killer as an almost indestructible robot, designed for assassination purposes, and that she was instrumental in its production. The script, by director Sandor Stern, contains some interesting material, and neatly explains Asimov's three laws of robotics, but elements of romantic love between the two protagonists and between Golem and a smitten woman (Jessica Nelson) seem extraneous, and a point of view is difficult to find throughout. Conrad is most effective during the film's first half, when he is able to use his deceptively simple naturalistic skills, and Austin always contributes a developed interpretation, with only a lack of any sensual chemistry between Conrad and her serving to somewhat hamper the narrative's rhythm. Stern directs well and the work never becomes dull; however, his scenario is rather serried with story lines and he loses his way as the picture moves along, inevitably giving most emphasis to a series of frenetic action scenes, most of which demonstrate the android's superhuman physical talents. Although obviously derivative, the score by Anthony Guefen is effective, and particularly so in connection with scenes meant to generate feelings of suspense, while Chuck Arnold handles the cinematography nicely and there is crisp editing as always by James Calloway.