An American naval officer is recruited for an operation to eliminate his lookalike.<BR>&nbsp;

An American naval officer is recruited for an operation to eliminate his lookalike.

At the beginning of The Assignment the stylised skyline of Paris gradually recedes as the camera pulls back into a bedroom where steamy sex has just occurred and where we meet our main man - the terrorist Carlos, known as The Jackal. I was aware of feeling at this moment a sense of being in safe hands, visually at least. But there was more - an intriguing story about the combined efforts of the CIA and Mossad to trap this most elusive world criminal. The involvement of family man, American naval officer Annibal Ramirez - Aidan Quinn - is sought, well coerced really, when obsessed CIA agent Jack Shaw -- Donald Sutherland -- and Mossad agent Amos -- Ben Kingsley -- accidentally discover that Ramirez is the spitting image of Carlos... they want him to become Carlos... Echoing themes from Donnie Brasco about the pitfalls of training to be brutal, The Assignment boasts an impressively low-key performance from Aiden Quinn as both Carlos and Ramirez...... it`s rare that this actor gets to strut his stuff quite as effectively as he does in this.... Donald Sutherland controls himself nicely as Shaw and Ben Kingsley is pretty self-effacing as Amos. The Assignment tells an intriguing story, a true story we gather, written by Dan Gordon and Sabi H. Shabtai - which just goes to show how some of the best stories are real..... but what impresses with the film is the confidence with which Quebec-based director Christian Duguay has elicited solid performances and delivered a film with such fluid visual style. Duguay was himself a cameraman. I did find some of the training sequences a trifle tedious but the more personal aspects of the film -- Ramirez` reluctant transformation from decent family man to absolutely ruthless killer was totally absorbing.