The Assignment

Sep 26 1997 R 1h 59m
Action, Crime, Thriller

Jack Shaw has experienced the terror first-hand. He's a top CIA agent who's tracked international killer-for-hire Carlos "The Jackal" Sanchez for over twenty years and barely survived Carlos' devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez.

Plot

1986. In his civilian clothes while on shore leave in Jerusalem, Lieutenant Commander Annibal Ramirez of the US Navy is captured and interrogated by who he eventually learns is Mossad in a case of mistaken identity. Because of the resemblance, they believed him to be Carlos the Jackal, one of if not the most wanted and dangerous terrorist in the world. Shortly following, Henry Fields, using the alias Jack Shaw, he the Paris deputy chief of CIA counter-terrorism whose primary mission for at least the past ten years has been to get rid of Carlos in any way possible, tries to recruit Ramirez to work on a covert CIA-Mossad operation to stop Carlos' terrorist activities with the ultimate goal of Carlos' capture or death. The plan is for Ramirez to impersonate Carlos, in the process discrediting Carlos in the eyes of his current KGB backers, and thus effectively ending his career as a terrorist, with nowhere he can longer hide. After an initial reluctance on Ramirez's part, Shaw is able to convince him to do the job. The rigorous training is to ensure that Ramirez not only looks like Carlos, but instinctively behaves like Carlos, even to those closest to him, which also means how he makes love as one of Ramirez's interactions is to be with one of Carlos' old girlfriends. Beyond the potential problem of getting caught by Carlos or his associates, Ramirez may have problems stomaching his work and reconciling it with his real life as a military man. If he is able to carry out the mission and survive, the bigger question becomes whether being Carlos will have transformed his inherent being permanently.

Written by

Dan Gordon, Sabi H. Shabtai

Directed by

Christian Duguay

Production Countries

Canada

Production Companies

The Movie Network, Allegro Films, Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit (CPTC), Gouvernement du Québec, Satch-Mo, Super Écran, Triumph Films, Program de Credits of Impuc

Languages

English, Français, Español

Awards

N/A

Scores
# of Votes
10,504
Average Rating
6.8 out of 10
Metascore
NA
Popularity
NA