Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Assassins’ Code’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

If there’s one thing I’ve always been intrigued by when it comes to film as a whole, it’s our outright obsession with bad motion pictures. Because by virtue, we should steer clear of sub-par cinema and immediately walk out of the theater or turn off the TV when we stumble upon a low-quality motion picture, but the opposite always happens. We instead find ourselves fascinated by said film, and it’s difficult to stop watching once you’ve gone down the proverbial rabbit hole and I know that I am as guilty of this as anyone.
 
Because once I start to see a story go off the rails, I find myself curious to see if the film is going to go all out in its collapse, or if it can save itself. And I also like to explore how a movie fell to pieces, by examining what script problems helped the movie in question fail its characters and its audience and it’s why I’ve sat through a great many ‘B Movies’ in my day. And recently, I stumbled upon a motion picture that looked to be full of potential thanks to its description on Amazon Prime, since it informed me I was about to enjoy a fascinating tale involving a former assassin who is drawn back into the underworld, but sadly, the final product left a lot to be desired since Assassins’ Code is quite the messy film when all is said and done.
 
That’s thanks in large part to the muddled plot that this motion picture features. Because most films in this vein, provide the audience with a fairly straight forward plot involving something or someone from the former agent or assassin’s past that draws them back into the life they left behind, before we are treated to a gripping, action heavy story, that has them overcoming their demons to do something good, or exact revenge. But after this seeing this film, I’m honestly not sure what the plot was about. Sure, it features some of the stuff I made mention of a moment ago since Paul Thorn, our lead character, has his past come back to haunt him. But after that, we are immersed within a murky story about a mystery disk drive, the contents of which are never explored or explained, nor do we ever find out why others are after it and that lack of explanation, or purpose surrounding Paul’s quest for knowledge confuses the viewer and removes them from the story entirely.
 
Plus, to make matters worse, the acting in this film is all over the place. Which is fascinating since it features some decent character actors in this film like John Savage, Martin Kove and Richard Moll, and quite frankly, they do solid work, but their attention to the craft and dedication to a story that has zero guidance is torpedoed by the performance of Julian Lee who plays Paul Thorn. Lee approaches the role with zero effort and his wooden portrayal of Paul robs every single scene he’s in of emotional weight, and I find it intriguing that Writer/Director Lawrence Riggins would cast someone with little acting skill to carry a thriller such as this when he had better cast members to work with and even the other ‘no name’ actor present in this film, Min-su Choi (pictured above), who plays the heavy, Karl Kim, offers up a better performance than Lee and I harp on this simply because this poor of a performance is incredibly distracting and off putting.
 
If anything, all of these issues are frustrating to say the least, because this movie actually had the potential to be something truly special and entertaining and for proof, look no further than the gorgeous cinematography present in this story since the late Ric Waite served as the Director of Photography on this film, and some of the shots he’s set up are perfect for a thriller such as this. Plus, some of the action sequences are quite the visual feast and actually manage to elicit a bit of a thrill. But sadly, the problems we’ve discussed far outweigh the good parts of this motion picture, and what you’re left with is a sloppy and confusing motion picture that is boring at best and for all the reasons we’ve discussed today, I highly recommend you stay from this one, unless of course, you’re like me and you’ve got that soft spot for movies that go completely off the rails…

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