RG
Roberto Giacomelli
•Aubrey is a nineteen-year-old girl from a good family with a passion for creative writing. One night, the girl disappears and the police think she has been kidnapped by a dangerous maniac who has already killed one of her peers. After a few weeks, Aubrey is found on the side of the road in critical condition: her right arm has been amputated and the doctors are forced to amputate her leg due to the numerous injuries inflicted and now infected. When Aubrey wakes up, however, she does not recognize her parents and claims to be called Dakota, an orphan, and earns her living as a dancer in a lap dance club. While the police investigate to track down the maniac, Dakota seeks to clarify her case and why everyone mistakes her for another person.
Flopping at the box office and earning a "ragguardevole" number of awards at the 2007 Razzie Awards, "The Name of My Assassin" arrives in Italy directly for the home video market, after being announced several times in theaters. The reason that pushed Moviemax to distribute the film directly on DVD is not clearly understood (the flop in US theaters probably), but the film with Lindsay Lohan as the protagonist has now earned a "cult" fame that does not do justice to the real quality of the work.
"The Name of My Assassin" does not work properly, this is evident from the first minutes, and the macroscopic problems of the screenplay and pacing are probably so invasive that they overshadow what good the film by Chris Sivertson has to offer. Why the film in question has a series of good cards played that should not be underestimated and, in the end, one could also remain pleasantly impressed by some more than good intuitions.
First of all, let's say that the much-criticized Lindsey Lohan, who received a double statuette at the aforementioned Razzies (best on-screen couple, since she plays a dual role), holds up admirably in a role new to her. The former queen of Disney comedies, in fact, debuts in fiction (but the parallel with her previous real-life roles is not entirely false) in a bad girl role that seems to fit her perfectly, so much so that she appears much more convincing when she portrays the lap dancer Dakota rather than the clean-cut girl Aubrey. But Lohan is especially valued because she is surrounded by a group of unconvincing and unconvincing actors who deliver a flat and colorless performance, starting with Julia Ormond ("The First Knight"; "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") and Neal McDonough ("High Tension"; "The Hitcher"), who play the role of Aubrey/Dakota's parents.
The theme that underlies "The Name of My Assassin" is one of those dated and exploited a thousand times: the doppelganger, the double. Fortunately, however, Jeff Hammond's subject is not banal and thus it is possible to address the subject by looking at an unprecedented aspect that is not the case to reveal here; the game of the double and the ambiguity of the situation works rather well even if the director Chris Sivertson ("The Lost") perhaps exaggerates on the accentuation of the differences between the two sides of the same coin (Aubrey and Dakota) making a use as fascinating as excessive to nausea of the chromatisms, characterizing with electric blue and bright red the scenes concerning the one and the other.
But unfortunately, as attractive and rich in potential as the subject is, the screenplay is messy and poorly managed, always the work of Hammond. The film, in fact, struggles to get started presenting an uncertain situation about which direction to take and frankly boring. Initially, everything begins in the chords of a teenage thriller turned realistic-scientific connotations typical of the modern crime-serial contemporary to "C.S.I" or "Cold Case", but soon the atmosphere changes and the desire to drive the nail in the direction of torture-porn is seen, thanks to the staging of some particularly cruel torture scenes. All managed with a rather bland rhythm. Then, when you get to the heart of the matter and the film begins to acquire its own identity, everything becomes more interesting and engaging, but that sense of farrago and superficiality remains, probably also united with some holes in what can be considered a disorderly script.
Between highs and lows, therefore, "The Name of My Assassin" ultimately turns out to be a film not to be missed but still pleasant, with more flaws than merits, but certainly not the disaster that was rumored(ed) around.