Hour Of The Assassin (1987)

Hour Of The Assassin (1987)-* *

Directed by: Luis Llosa

Starring: Erik Estrada, Francisco Giraldo, and Robert Vaughn

Martin Fierro (Estrada) is hired by some generals to assassinate the new president of the South American country of San Pedro, Roberto Villaverde (Giraldo). They convince him to do this by playing to his sympathies regarding his father, a man assassinated by these very same generals, although Fierro doesn’t know that. According to them, his father was “leftist scum” (which they say behind Fierro’s back, of course). Fierro has his work cut out for him, except for one thing: ex-CIA operative Sam Merrick (Vaughn), who is tracking Fierro and intent on stopping the assassination. It’s a race against time - who will come out victorious?

It’s yet another “El Presidente” movie - A South America-set film about rebels in the streets versus the political establishment. This plotline was more prevalent in video stores than you might think - Cocaine Wars (1985), McBain (1991), Perfect Target (1997) and the latest example, The Expendables (2010). The plot is extremely simple - it’s Vaughn chasing Estrada for over 90 minutes - so after an exciting opening chase sequence and the setup of the plot, the middle section drags heavily. It’s natural that this would happen with such minimal plot. A few interestingly-lit sequences are not enough to solve this problem.

The movie does deliver some standard chases and shooting, but the roles for both Estrada and Vaughn are a little different than usual. The tone is downbeat, serious and low-key. Estrada doesn’t play bad-guy assassin roles too often, and how often do you see “Control 5” himself, Robert Vaughn, at least at the age he was when he shot this movie, running around South America playing the action star?  Of course, Vaughn’s “hair” is odd and is constantly changing from scene to scene, and, like Chris Lemmon in Firehead (1991), whose catchphrase was the ever-present “Jesus Christ!”, here Robert Vaughn utters the word “Bastard!” every other scene. 

This was a Corman production, released in the U.S. in the always cool MGM/UA big-box. Director Luis Llosa shot the film in his native Peru and there are some nice locations. He later had some mainstream hits with Anaconda (1997), the Stallone vehicle The Specialist (1994) and the classic Tom Berenger Sniper (1993). He’s also responsible for the Corman David Carradine film Crime Zone (1989). This was his first cinematic foray, and it’s not bad, it’s just standard, and even tends toward boring at times.

This is the perfect example of video store shelf-filler that, yes, has cool box art and all, but will underwhelm you. It makes true gems like Deadly Prey (1987) stand out all the more.

Comeuppance Review by: Brett and Ty