Assassin Club (2023) Review

“Assassin Club” Theatrical Poster

Director: Camille Delamarre
Cast: Henry Golding, Noomi Rapace, Sheena Hao, Sam Neill, Daniela Melchior, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Anastasia Doaga, Gianluca Bottoni, Giulio Pampiglione
Running Time: 110 min.

By Paul Bramhall

Like every genre, the action movie is one that goes through cycles. For almost 10 years we’ve been in the age of the assassin flick, kickstarted by 2014’s John Wick and its (at least back then) refreshing approach to no frills, efficient kills. Since then we’ve had dying assassins (Kate), single mother assassins (Kill Boksoon), averse to killing assassins (The Fable: A Hitman Who Doesn’t Kill), retired assassins (The Killer: A Girl Who Deserves to Die), make it look like an accident assassins (Accident Man) and many many more. In 2023 the latest one has arrived in the form of Assassin Club, in which Henry Golding plays a former military man turned assassin, the kind who believes in only taking out the bad guys.

I can’t help but feel bad for Golding, his starring role in the G.I. Joe spin-off Snake Eyes was up against Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings as the Hollywood friendly Asian themed action fix of 2021, and as expected, that meant it never really stood a chance. While it’d be easy to justify its failure by saying a spin-off from a couple of late 00’s/early 10’s action blockbusters was never going to come out on top against the all-powerful Disney Marvel machine, the truth is more straight forward – Snake Eyes was a bad movie, and Golding simply failed to convince as an action lead.

Far from being deterred though, here director Camille Delamarre provides him with a 2^nd opportunity to prove his worth as an action star for the 2020’s, and if you’re going to choose the path of least resistance, an assassin movie is the way to go. Delamare comes from that stable of filmmakers who emerged from the shadow of Luc Besson in the 2000’s, which includes directors like Olivier Megaton, who subjected audiences to such atrocities as The Transporter 3 and the Taken sequels. Delamarre’s time in the director’s chair is only marginally more tolerable, helming 2014’s Brick Mansions (the Hollywood remake of Banlieue 13) and 2015’s disastrous reboot The Transporter Refueled.

However with Assassin Club Delamarre has successfully elevated himself to the same level as Megaton when it comes to directors who should stay as far away from camera, scripts, actors, and just about anything else you can name connected to filmmaking. His latest is one of the most intolerably bad movies I’ve seen for a long time, and I’ve seen some bad movies. That rare production when literally nothing works – the performances, the action, the script, the pacing – everything, to the point that there’s not a single redeeming quality to be found. What’s worse, it goes on for 110 minutes.

Where to start? Looming over everything like a gargantuan black cloud is the script, which is so detached from reality it feels like it was teleported in from the twilight zone. Golding’s assassin is one of those rare breeds that likes to talk to themselves when hunting their target – “where are you bastard?” he utters while stalking a building, gun aimed forward. In another he returns to base after a kill and watches the CCTV footage of the day, revealing a wayward youth graffitiing one of his walls – “Graffiti, ok, you gotta practice more buddy” he calmly quips to himself, revealing his inner-cool and level of wit. Don’t get me started on the way he has to recite poetry before pulling the trigger, and poorly attempted character quirks like a love of eating cereal straight from the box and listening to hip-hop on vinyl.

The story itself involves the daughter of an assassinated businessman, and her plan to seek revenge 7 years later when she’s become a young adult. Not knowing who the assassin was due to their face being covered, a rather convoluted plot essentially sees her put hits on the 7 most well-known assassins in Europe, resulting in them all looking to kill each other. The concept of assassins hunting their own can be a fun one, with perhaps the best example being Scott Mann’s The Tournament from 2009, however here the opportunities to crank up the tension and develop creative action scenes aren’t just squandered, they’re ignored all together. 

One of the funniest elements of Assassin Club is that it seems to treat Europe as if it’s the size of a small city. Events unfold in the Czech Republic, Slovenia, France, Italy, Bosnia, Spain, and Portugal, usually indicated by onscreen text and an opening shot of aerial stock footage highlighting the country in question. At one point Golding drives from Rome to Barcelona, fights one of the assassins, then drives straight back to Rome again to save his endangered girlfriend as if it was a trip to the local grocery store. 

The number of countries the plot plays out in is only matched by the number of accents lead villain Noomi Rapace (Prometheus, Alien: Covenant) belts out, resulting in what’s arguably the standout performance of Assassin Club. From scene to scene she’ll sound French, then Eastern European, then suddenly a Texan drawl appears out of nowhere, all without any explanation, other than she perhaps realised what complete garbage she was appearing in, so decided to have fun with it. Other assassins are barely worth a mention. We get Sheena Hao (The Last Heroes) as the obligatory female Japanese assassin Yuko, who Sam Neill describes as a “martial arts master”, and the ‘Italian Van Damme’ Claudio Del Falco (The Final Fight) turns up and doesn’t even get to throw a kick.

In case you’re wondering, yes, the Sam Neill I mentioned is the same Sam Neill from the likes of Jurassic Park and Event Horizon. Quite what he’s doing here is a mystery, up there with Peter O’Toole turning up in Diamond Cartel, or Charlton Heston’s appearance in The Order. Neill plays the broker for the assassins, having raised them as orphans to be trained killers (of course), and plays his part as a stiff upper lipped English gentleman whose all about sipping on whiskey, playing the piano, and indulging in ear bleedingly awful banter. At one point Golding attempts to tell Neill that he wants out of the assassin business while they’re having dinner together in a Chinese restaurant (of course), to which Neill responds, “I’m out too…of SOY SAUCE!” 

Unfortunately the budget didn’t seem to stretch to find a location for Neill’s lavish living arrangements, so an important dialogue scene is completely undermined by the fact the whole background is embarrassingly green screened, including the roaring open fire that they’re supposed to be sat in front of. Frankly though, poor greenscreen work is the least of Assassin Club’s problems, with so many amateurish mistakes or just plain bizarre choices (I swear every computer that appears comes with an accompanying ‘blip blip blip blip’ sound effect whenever a character types, which drove me crazy) that by halfway though I stopped keeping track of them. My personal favorite was a scene in which Golding’s girlfriend has been tied to a chair, and then put in a bath. I mean, why not just tie her up and throw her in the bath instead? Same result, a lot less effort.

It’s difficult to describe Assassin Club as anything other than a complete disaster, with lacklustre and frankly outdated action (if you thought watching slow motion bullets was a 2000’s thing, you’re wrong), embarrassing performances, and a plot that aims to break the record for how many holes a single script can have. How directors like Delamarre continue to get work is one of life’s great mysteries, as he’s already proven to be an incompetent action filmmaker, but producers seem happy to inexplicably keep throwing fuel on the fire. Does the question even need to be answered to if Assassin Club makes Golding the credible action star he’s obviously striving for? I think not.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 2/10