The Assassin Next Door
DVD 
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Director:
Danny Lerner Actors: Olga Durylenko Ninet Tayeb Vladimir Friedman Rating:
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WHAT'S IT ABOUT?
An enslaved mob prostitute decides to kill for her employers in exchange for money, a passport and her freedom. Along the way she befriends her neighbour who’s being abused by her husband and shares her dream of escape. Both women soon find out just how in over their heads they really are.
IS IT A GOOD MOVIE?
I like Olga Kurylenko and have found her work and role choices interesting as well as getting better and bigger with each new film she does (case in point, she was one of the last Bond woman in QUANTOM OF SOLACE). The idea of her leading an action flick with the word “assassin” in the title sounded like cool beans to me. Unfortunately this film’s implications are quite contrary to the irrefutable truth: this flick sucks.
First of all, the story line here goes beyond the realm of ridiculous. Kurylenko is Galia, a prostitute for an group of people like Marko from Tripolia and his boys from TAKEN, now take a minute to think about that so you can get a good idea of the sort of scumbags we’re dealing with here. You got it? Good. Now Galia wants out (I can’t imagine why), so these geniuses decide to turn her into an assassin to work off her freedom. Now we’re not talking a FEMME NIKITA here, this chick’s been doing nothing but turning tricks and now they decide to just hand her over a gun thinking this will make her an overnight assassin capable of killing guys in their line of work. Does that make sense to you, because it sure as hell doesn’t make much sense to me!
Now getting past that for a second, let me bring you back to the title, THE ASSASSIN NEXT DOOR, the bulk of this mind bogglingly boring tale takes place between Galia and a chick getting smacked around by her husband in the apartment next to her. The back and forth between these two women is not only pointless but has absolutely nothing to do with the set of problems and goals originally set by our protagonist. From the beginning it’s established that Galia wants out of this life so she can fly home to the daughter she gave up after birth, a point driven home by several flashbacks, crying and dreams, yet when she finally gets the chance to do so, she sticks with her crazy neighbour instead.
THE ASSASSIN NEXT DOOR isn’t worth the disc it’s printed on. If the above mentioned facts haven’t swayed you then let me talk a bit about the supposed climax (and I use that term lightly as this was anything but exiting). As you can well imagine we have Galia vs. not one but two gangs of these thugs and though they happen to be trained killers, for some reason they’re all bad shots and this prostitute who doesn’t weight much more than a buck o five and has only had a gun (much less fired it) for a few weeks is seemingly unstoppable. I can see Liam Neeson opening the extra large can of whoop ass that he did as he was a trained professional but this chick, come on!
First of all, the story line here goes beyond the realm of ridiculous. Kurylenko is Galia, a prostitute for an group of people like Marko from Tripolia and his boys from TAKEN, now take a minute to think about that so you can get a good idea of the sort of scumbags we’re dealing with here. You got it? Good. Now Galia wants out (I can’t imagine why), so these geniuses decide to turn her into an assassin to work off her freedom. Now we’re not talking a FEMME NIKITA here, this chick’s been doing nothing but turning tricks and now they decide to just hand her over a gun thinking this will make her an overnight assassin capable of killing guys in their line of work. Does that make sense to you, because it sure as hell doesn’t make much sense to me!
Now getting past that for a second, let me bring you back to the title, THE ASSASSIN NEXT DOOR, the bulk of this mind bogglingly boring tale takes place between Galia and a chick getting smacked around by her husband in the apartment next to her. The back and forth between these two women is not only pointless but has absolutely nothing to do with the set of problems and goals originally set by our protagonist. From the beginning it’s established that Galia wants out of this life so she can fly home to the daughter she gave up after birth, a point driven home by several flashbacks, crying and dreams, yet when she finally gets the chance to do so, she sticks with her crazy neighbour instead.
THE ASSASSIN NEXT DOOR isn’t worth the disc it’s printed on. If the above mentioned facts haven’t swayed you then let me talk a bit about the supposed climax (and I use that term lightly as this was anything but exiting). As you can well imagine we have Galia vs. not one but two gangs of these thugs and though they happen to be trained killers, for some reason they’re all bad shots and this prostitute who doesn’t weight much more than a buck o five and has only had a gun (much less fired it) for a few weeks is seemingly unstoppable. I can see Liam Neeson opening the extra large can of whoop ass that he did as he was a trained professional but this chick, come on!
THE EXTRAS
Previews: There are four funny looking trailers here. Problem is they’re not comedies.
FINAL DIAGNOSIS
This is straight to DVD fodder at its absolute worst ladies and gentlemen. How in the name of Christ you go from Bond girl to this mess is a mystery I’ll never understand. Trust me when I tell you that for all intensive purposes this film does not exist.
