At first glance, Assassin appears to be a Possessor clone. While the feature-length debut of director/co-writer Jess Atlas does share similarities to Brandon Cronenberg’s film, the two are distinct from each other. Cronenberg’s brilliant title is a heartbreaking tale about stripping a person’s humanity away. Atlas and co-writer Aaron Wolfe are more interested in why someone would even consider controlling another’s body to kill and the jarring nature of those first few trips into a different consciousness.
“…Valmora wants Alexa to inhabit Mali, a painter Adrian is fond of, and trap him…”
Alexa (Nomzamo Mbatha) is mad at Valmora (Bruce Willis) for allowing her drone pilot husband, Sebastian (Mustafa Shakir), to wind up in a coma. But, Valmora needs the woman’s help. He unveils the truth to the frustrated wife: thanks to a technological breakthrough Sebastian, and his allies, would take over other people’s bodies and get close to their targets that way. The flesh puppet’s consciousness is essentially lost in limbo during these unwanted intrusions of the mind.
Why does any of this concern Alexa? Adrian (Dominic Purcell) stole some of these microchips and is using them to murder everyone in Sebastian’s unit, including him. So, Valmora wants Alexa to inhabit Mali (Andy Allo), a painter Adrian is fond of, and trap him when the time is right. Reluctantly, Alexa agrees, but as she spends more and more time as the artist, she begins to lose herself. Is it possible to get revenge when the reason for it seemingly belongs to someone else? Is hatred enough to ground one’s mind and focus on who one truly is, or will it be the undoing of all involved?
