The Assignment

Yikes! Who thought this was a good idea? Michelle Rodriguez stars as as professional hitman Frank Kitchen who, after killing the wrong person, is given a sex change against his will and released back into the world. Don't you hate it when that happens? Rodriguez plays both versions of the character offering her some interesting acting challenges but this translates to almost nothing of interest on-screen.

While half of the film stays on Frank, the other half involves his surgeon (Sigourney Weaver) justifying the series of events which led her to the nuthouse to a disbelieving doctor (Tony Shalhoub). These sequences, completely separate from the other half of the story, are an attempt to provide some narrative to help explain events. While I'm sure Shalhoub and Weaver had fun working together (in a reunion of sorts from Galaxy Quest), I honestly can't figure out what either are doing this movie (although without them it would be completely unwatchable).

For years writer/director Walter Hill struggled to get the project off the ground (I wonder why) eventually releasing it as a graphic novel in France which eventually led full circle with the film being made cheaply (and still failing miserably to earn back even a fraction of what it cost to make). Be careful what you wish for.

Given the struggles of making a film, maybe it's surprising more movies aren't complete dumpster fires like The Assignment. However, even if the film had turned out exactly how Hill envisioned, it's hard to see this premise ever working.

Ignored by audiences and derided by critics, The Assignment also earned the ire of the transgender community given the film leaning hard into Republican transphobic nightmare fantasies of forced gender reassignment surgery taking the film down a notch from just bad to truly wretched.

• Title: The Assignment
• IMDb: link