Side Order of Ninjas

   Index  -  Reviews  -  Rants  -  Links
Latest Reviews

Top 5 Reviews

Assassin (1986)


Cast:

Robert "James T. West of the true Wild Wild West" Conrad is Henry Stanton
Karen "I was on Night Court before Markie Post..." Austin is Mary Casallas
Richard Young is Robert Golem
Jonathan "FreeJack is a quality movie" Banks is Earl Dickman


What the box says:

A former government intelligence agent is called out of retirement to seek out and destroy a deadly weapon of mass destruction - a cyborg gone bad. Because the robot looks and acts as a human, the agent will face the biggest challenge of his career. It might just cost him his life.


Plot:

Bob, a secret agent, breaks into the office and steals his dossier. In the course of his raid, he manages to throw an office desk across the room.


KARATE CHOP!!!!
This action sets the great wheels of intelligence to turn. In LA, Men in Black need Mary Casallas about Robert Golem. Elsewhere, a chopper lands at Henry Stanton's cabin. Cal, his former boss, needs him to go after a rogue agent who knows about all the current agents but not about retired ones.

Whoever smelt it dealt it isn't always correct...

Bob starts hunting down Mary. Bob was in the assassination section. Hank gets talked into helping with this problem. He and Mary head to her apartment. Bob attacks. Hank shoots Bob who shrugs the shots off but jumps out of the 5 story window without taking any damage.


One should always be careful to not run out of windows...

Mary explains that Bob is an android built for assassination. Hank isn't too happy about all of this. Explaining Bob's abilities of enhanced hearing, sight, bulletproof, and heatproof above the standards of humans.


Yul Brynner stars in West World: Behind the Scenes.
Bob must recharge every few days.

Bob recharges and adds a metal plate to his stomach to bulletproof his CPU.

Hank reveals he quit when a job ended in a plane crash. Hank, Mary and the rest of the agency learn that Bob is at a hotel. Searching the hotel, they don't find Bob who manages to recharge in another room than where he was expected.


Who knew the Johnny Mnemonic sunglasses were so trendy in 1986?
The getaway ends when Bob jumps out of a window and runs away.

Hank and Mary decide to check on Mary's former partner: Dewberry who helped created Bob. They search for Dewberry's journals and are unaware that Cal, Hank's boss, wants to examine the journals first. Finding the journals, other federal agents want the journals which don’t go well with Robert Conrad.

Bob has repaired him again and demonstrated he's quite the love machine though not up to Shaft level. Later, he manages to kill an author at a book signing.

Hank and Mary have examined the journals and found several names listed that have been killed lately and several more names that haven't been hit yet including Cal.

Bob heads to Washington and manages to dispatch a Senator. The FBI wants to know how anyone can ride under a car for miles and several of these other things that Bob has done.

Hank decides the best chance to get Bob is use Cal as bait. At Santa Fe, they set traps up at Dewberry's ranch. Bob overhears a phone call and heads after his prey. That night, Bob manages to get rid of several agents. He radios Hank and reveals that Cal had the bomb planted that caused Hank to quit. Refusing to send them out, Cal does get scared and runs out to the bomb shelter.


Aren't bomb shelters meant to protect people from explosions rather than be used to channel them?
Bob follows him. Hank locks the bomb shelter door shut. Bob starts circling around because his programming activates self-destruct when he is trapped. He explodes. Hank and Mary embrace, knowing that everything is calm now, though Mary looks like a sequel may ensue.


What I say:

This has to be the first 1980s TV-movie on SideOrderofNinjas. One day, I may get the movie with David Hasslehoff trying to stop a time-traveling Jack the Ripper from getting to the London Bridge in Arizona. Just that sentence mkaes the movie quality...An 80s movie, far better than just that, an 80s TV-movie, even better an 80s TV-movie based on the Terminator. Killer android set to kill humans. Another movie where cyborg and robot are interchanged. For the non-nerdish readers, a cyborg would be a living being with mechanical parts such as the 6 Million Dollar Man. A robot would be like R2-D2. A humanoid-looking robot would be an android like Data form Star Trek: the Next Generation.

What do you say when the director of this movie also directed Amityville 4, the TV-movie with the evil lamp? Yes, his famous movie is lesser known than Amityville 3-D.

Robert Conrad is one of the big TV actors from the 1960s and 1970s. You're bound to remember him from Baa Baa Black Sheep to the non-Will Smith'ed Wild Wild West. Do every retired intelligence agency quit because they're disillusioned? No, some are framed for treason and must have revenge. The disillusioned kind are the wounded warriors that needed to be healed from a wasted career where they were thrown away after being disavowed. For a time, trying to keep Robert Conrad, Robert Urich, and Robert Wagoner apart is almost like Abbott and Costello's

Jonathan Banks is probably an actor you won't recognize at first. He is definitely one of those evil, character actors like Lance LeGault. The heavy character actors that are always evil or the martinet bureacrat type character...He will have most people scratch their heads. "That guy looks vaguely familiar from some show..." Earl Dickman could only sound more sinister if the name was Evil McBadMan.

A paranoid mad scientist is at it again but not in the Dr. Frankenstein style (the tampering in domains man should best leave alone). This guy has created a powerful android and set it to assassinate everyone that annoys him and his view of American life. An android that is bulletproof and can stand jumping from up to 6 story windows without damage. Granted, the Terminator took more damage and look more robotic with the metallic skeleton than the few flesh colored compartments in Bob. OK, Golem was used more often. However, the idea of a unstoppable killing android named "Bob" just seems funnier.

The end almost screams sequel or some kind of series coming on later. The idea that there may be more androids loose is hinted.



2 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"What do you say, old pal of mine?"
"Get out of there right now..."
"He wearsa bulletproof vest between his eyes."
"You gonna eat your pie?"
"You can't be an assassin without using a gun."
"He reinforced hyis stomach."
"This smells as kosher as a roast suckling pig..."


Morals of the Story

PRIVATE signs conceal numeric keypads.
The Newlywed Game is tear-inducing.
Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics aren't used when creating an assassin android.
Wiggling your Adam's Apple allows you to control ATMs.
An iron can hide bullet wounds.
Spinning around in circles causes androids to explode.