The Assassin Next Door

Starring: Olga Kurylenko, Ninette Tayeb, Zohar Shtrauss

Synopsis:

(aka Kirot): In a rundown apartment building located on the wrong side of town, two women, unknown to each other, live across the hall on the second floor. Galia is an assassin forced into the killing trade by the local mafia and hopes to be reunited with her daughter who she left back in Russia. Eleanor is a grocery store cashier and a victim of spousal abuse. She dreams of winning the lottery and leaving her abusive husband. When Galia refuses to carry out her last mission and Eleanor discovers that she is pregnant, both women’s fates entwine and their lives change forever.

“Bond girls” have tended to come under flack in the past and I’ve never really understood why. Eva Green and Olga Kurylenko helped push that stigma way back in the past where it belongs. This role could not have been further from the glamorous role that Kurylenko enjoyed in Quantum of Solace. Even when she was roughed up in the Bond film, her makeup and look was still stylised and sexy. In The Assassin Next Door, Kurylenko plays Galia with a gritty realism and harshness that reminds me very much of 70s vigilante movies. Saying that, Kurylenko would still look attractive in a potato sack but I digress.

From the opening shot of Olga Kurylenko’s eyes, we know that the director, Danny Lerner, means business. In a virtually dialogue free opening, we get all the information that we need; Galia is in the sex trafficking trade and neither she nor her companion wants to be there. What follows is a desperate attempt to escape. For one it ends quickly and tragically, for Galia it means a choice of going back to “The Nest” or carrying out hits for the mafia with the promise of the return of her passport and a one off payment. Lerner, who also wrote the movie, is careful to never outright explain fully how Galia got into the mess that she’s in and the movie is all the better for it. In fact there’s a quiet intellectual side to this movie that is lacking in most films of its type but harks back again to the Luc Besson double of Nikita and Leon.

Given the DVD artwork, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this film is similar to both Nikita (a movie that is being shown in yet another incarnation in the form of another TV show with Maggie Q) and Leon. The movie isn’t quite the action tour de force that it’s presented as; however there are very subtle nods to both movies. As with Leon, Galia’s intervention in a neighbour’s plight changes her world. Elinor assists Galia in her grocery shopping, giving her tips on what to buy and the best bargains and reminds me of the scene in Nikita where she meets her boyfriend.

Both actresses are very good. Each conveys a depth through their acting that supplements the screenplay. The mise en scène captures the murky world that the two women inhabit extremely well – everything looks grungy and dirty. When Galia is first introduced to her apartment we see a cockroach scuttling across the kitchen top. Places, in general, look rundown and neglected.

As mentioned above, it was interesting to see Olga Kurylenko in a role that requires her to be more than window dressing alongside male action stars (I’m referring to both Max Payne and Hitman here). In Quantum of Solace and Centurion she proved that she was not just a sex object but in The Assassin Next Door she is able to properly display her acting skills and depth of ability. For example, despite the fact that men are sent to kill her, it’s clear from Kurlyenko’s acting that she doesn’t want to have to kill them. There’s a look of regret on her face as she shoots. The Israeli actress Ninette Tayeb is also not only stunningly attractive but a competent actress too. Both shine in their scenes together. Both of their characters have been weak in their approach to life; Galia in the way that she has run away from her previous life and Elinor in the way that she has allowed a bad situation to get much worse. For this reason, the characters do not gain strong sympathy with the viewer. Strangely, it’s the male characters that really suffer in this movie and are quite two-dimensional. Lerner seems to have spent so much time developing the two female leads that he has neglected characterisation of the bad guys. The Mafia henchmen are mainly cannon fodder for Galia or a threatening presence. The acting appears ok, but no male role has much more to do than be violent and unlikeable.

There is a genuine tension in the action scenes, which are shot with realism in mind, and the finale is nicely ambiguous.

Summary

If you fancy a gritty action thriller with an intriguing subtext, then The Assassin Next Door is for you. Fans of Luc Besson’s movies could do worse than check out this title, although it doesn’t have quite as much style and flair as the two obvious comparisons. I would compare it to some of the heroic bloodshed movies that came out of Hong Kong in the nineties; not big budget but interesting nonetheless.

7 out of 10 (Wayfarer)

New! Comments