The Assassin Next Door (2009)

I truly wanted to rate this film higher but there are too many plot holes and the unreal, downright dumb ending made me mark it down. Overall, the plot was good but the writing was bad. The actors did a good job with the what they had.***Spoiler Alert*** A few plot holes to show what I mean: 1. Once she was in the flat, she could hav easily gone to her embassy (most are in Tel Aviv) and told them that her passport was stolen and got a new one. I know, I hav to get a stolen passport replace'd.2. Eleanor was in the Army yet she needs to go on the roof and fire a pistol in the air to get wonted to the sound of the gun? BTW, shooting a gun off a rooftop is dangerous and dumb ... What goes up must come down and those bullets came down somewhere in the city. Holding a metal object in your hand during a thunderstorm on a rooftop isn't too bright either.3. They go thru the metal detector at the bus station but yet everyone still has their guns for the final shootout.There are others. A few small ones I can overlook ... blatant ones I can't.Dumb Ending. The final shootout itself was OK. What was unbelievable was that a shootout that long wouldn't hav drawn the bus-hof's security out in full force. Even more unbelievable is that they would hav walk'd thru the hof with Galia bleeding from the wound and dripping blood and no one ... no one ... not a guard, not a bystander, not a train'd soldier came to help her. And even more unbelievable than that, was that they got on a city bus going ... where? I hope they were going to hospital but why not call an ambulance to the hof in the first place? Or at least get a taxi to a hospital. I am suppose to believ that they stood at a bus stop while she bled ... got a bus with other folks, while she bled ... and the bus driver didn't do anything? This could hav and should hav been a great film but the writing and editing fell far short of the potential.

Violent thrillers are yet a rather unexplored territory for the big screen Israeli cinema, and I really wonder why. The Israeli reality even if we put aside the political conflict is quite violent at least if one follows the news. While thrillers and detective stories made their way to the TV series, there are very few productions of the genres on big screens. Kirot (which means Walls, although the English title is The Assassin Next Door) is already four years old, and is one of the rare productions in the genre. It is almost a good one, but ...There was no problem for the script writers to extract the medium and the characters that populate the movie. Local mafia is said to be in control of the sex industry, and many of the characters that populate it are of Russian origin, and the sex workers are also coming in numbers from the less fortunate countries of the former Soviet Union. So a former prostitute forced by the Russian mafia to become a killer does not seem to be an extraordinary story. Even less is exceptional the case of the young woman victim of domestic violence, with simple and naive dreams that are never to be fulfilled. These two characters acted by Olga Kurylenko and local rock star Ninette Tayeb are naturally drawn to each other by a shared record of violence and social injustice, by a lack of hope that makes their fate almost unavoidable. The best scenes of the film are the ones where the two get to know each other wining over the distrust and the differences in language and background, starting to trust, then become friends and eventually share fate. The rather non-professional acting backgrounds of both actresses help, bringing freshness, sincerity and emotion in the building relation between the two.The story around is quite expected, and not badly written with the exception of the final which is unrealistic from many respects. The combination of woman killer, women in distress helping each other against violence, mafia movies, all in an Israeli margin-of-the-society environment works well because if does not take over the film, while keeping the interest of the viewers arise and balancing the story so that it does not become too melodramatic. Director Danny Lerner at his second film (he did not make any other film since then) shows quite a talent in directing actors, setting the camera at the right places, building a credible environment an Israeli can recognize. But here is the problem - there was enough good material in the film to make a more blunt social statement, or use some more striking expressive means. Danny Lerner did not undertake this challenge. Daring more and pushing the limits would have helped the film step ahead of the line. It is a decent film, a decent directorial job, and so it risks to be remembered (if at all) - decent, but not more.

This movie reminds me more of Abel Ferrara's MS 45 than anything else. Also, it achieves the impossible: I no longer have the slightest interest in seeing Olga Kurylenko naked.I rated this flicker higher than I normally would, partly because it's a character study grafted onto a shoot 'em up, a sort of sub-genre I'm a sucker for, and mostly for Kurylenko's visceral performance. The action elements are rote and banal; the real interest here is the interplay between the two female characters.Ultimately, despite the tiresome elements, it worked for me as a brutal indictment of the treatment of women in patriarchal societies, of which modern Israel is as guilty as many other supposedly less enlightened places. The crucial opening scene is, I hate to say, dead on and made me cringe; the only change I would have made was turning the Semitic-appearing men into pasty dimwits from New Jersey in Israel on 'religious study'.Most people don't know Israel, particularly Tel Aviv, is a major trafficking point, with the usual merchandise, i. e. poverty-stricken Ukrainian and Moldovian women. Knowing Kurylenko's background (provincial Ukrainian), her performance makes more sense, and is a stunner; I think personally the inconsistencies in her acting are due more to a scatter-shot script than her own skills; although, I gotta question whether she was actually 'acting' as such. This movie and role had to, had to, hit home for Kurylenko. She pulls a scary performance out of her stylish leather coat.Personally, for me, I've spent time around these people in real life; and the guys are just as bafflingly evil as depicted in this movie, the women just as bafflingly confused. The subject material is depressing in the extreme, I guess. The moment where this movie hit me is a scene on a bus, in which Kurylenko is either scrubbed of makeup or made up to look that way; and I realized with a shock she is a dead ringer for someone I once met in real life, right down to the clothes. That woman is now undoubtedly dead.Watch it for the schizoid movie it is: half popcorn, half deadly serious.

For anyone even mildly interested in this genre' of drama, this film is smartly done, intelligent, absolutely well crafted . . . could not have been done better. It's not just the dark and murky world of human trafficking, the mob and all that mixed into the interesting backdrop of this piece, but also the amazingly well articulated relationship that evolves between the two central female characters.The ending is a bit rough, as in it's gut wrenching and then some, but the entire story moves along at a pace that makes every scene count for its maximum potential value.As for Olga, who co-stars in the leading role . . . what can I say? She is seriously smoking hot, and in her own unique way, delivers her character like no other actress possibly could.This film may not be for everyone, but for those who can connect to this genre' of story and filmcraft, it's beautiful, harsh, and tragic all at the same time, hits every button that can be imagined in such context.This is a work of art . . . well done. 10+ in my book.